Belief is the Irrational Now Between Rising and Falling
by Setaflow
Summary: How do you tape together your life when the world seems determined to keep breaking it again, and again, and again? It's something that Steve Harrington doesn't have the answer to. And he doesn't think he'll ever figure it out, anyway. But hey. Maybe it'll make a good college essay.
1. The Aftermath

**Consider this an exorcism of all of my Steve Harrington demons post Season 2. Please enjoy!**

 **I don't own anything in Stranger Things.**

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Steve Harrington had always considered himself pretty thick-skinned. Some people might've thought that "thick-skinned" translated into "thick-headed", which he had a rather strong distaste for. Steve couldn't remember any particular moment where he gave more than two shits about his social status, if only because he knew that it was cemented in place since sixth grade. Now? Now was a different story for entirely wrong reasons.

A few days had passed since the…events. After a day of babysitting middle schoolers, dragging himself around Hawkins three time over, waking up in the back of a stranger's car to find a teenaged girl behind the wheel, and wandering into an alternate dimension version of _Little Shop of Horrors_ , Steve had quite a resume filler on his hands. If only he wouldn't be laughed out of every building this side of the border for even the mere idea of it. When he got home in the waning hours of the morning, Steve wanted nothing more than to climb into his bed and sleep until his eyelids crusted over and his skin rotted off and he sunk into his mattress like it was going to swallow him up. But, well, he's a high school senior with appearances to keep up and classes to attend. It wasn't as though life was giving him too many options.

The weekend passes with little consequence, giving him minimal time to heal up and the opportunity to fabricate a story of how his face has gotten so bashed up. It wasn't pretty, but he'd take a week's grounding over whatever else those bastards in Hawkins Lab had planned for him if he blabbed. Or worse: Hopper.

Monday morning, November fifth. The day arrives like any other. Steve wakes up exactly eighteen minutes before his alarm. There's no noise outside, because even the birds have flown south by now and no man in their right minds would want to mow a lawn in forty degree temperatures. So he sits. And thinks. And contemplates his own circumstances until his alarm rings and his mother bangs on his door, telling him to move. The trance broken, Steve clambers out of bed, shivering in silence.

He washes his face, does his hair and teeth, dresses, and goes downstairs for breakfast. His mother has laid out a granola bar, two aspirin, and a bottle of water for him, which he takes halfheartedly, his appetite long abandoned.

On his way to school, he passes Maple Street. Steve's hand hovers over his turn signal on instinct until his remembers that, well, he really doesn't have much of a reason to head over there anymore.

He expected to feel a wave of bitterness wash over him, maybe perhaps a rush of anger or even something smaller. A spark of some vaguely negative emotion to stir inside of him, perhaps, but goddammit, all Steve feels is exhausted. Achingly exhausted, the kind of tiredness that muddles your mind and turns your brain into fog. Maybe it was a good thing in hindsight; Steve couldn't behave irrationally, today of all days.

And so, he pulls into the parking lot of Hawkins High School by himself. The spaces are dotted with high schoolers, some who are desperately trying to do their homework in the fading minutes before class and others who are just chatting without worry to their friends. It's peaceful in a way. Steve isn't really feeling it, but at least things are still relatively normal to the general public. Maybe today isn't going to be as hard as he thought.

Barely ten steps away from his car, some sophomore with a baby face that Steve doesn't even know catches sight of him and stares, wide-eyed. "Jesus, Steve, what happened to your _face_!?" he asks, openly pointing at his nose as if trying his goddamned hardest to make as much of a scene as possible.

Steve shoots him a warning look that sends waves of pain right back through his face. "Yell a little louder next time, why don't you?" he says humorlessly.

The baby-faced sophomore's cheeks go bright red, spreading right to his ears (which, Steve isn't going to lie, is immensely satisfying). He opens his mouth again, but before he can say anything, his friend—some sophomore girl with blonde hair—places on a hand on his shoulder as if she thought the kid was going to rush someone twice his size. "Look, just drop it, Kyle," she murmurs, not nearly soft enough.

"Yeah, Kyle," Steve mocks, feeling drained all over again, "just drop it."

Baby-Face Kyle looks as though he's just been slapped, but Steve didn't much care to stick around any longer. He promptly turns on heel and heads across the parking lot. Fortunately, the two sophomores have enough common sense between them not to chase him down, so Steve slings his backpack over his shoulders and marches on.

To be fair, Baby-Face Kyle's reaction is something Steve should've expected. His long trudge down the asphalt turns heads, and not in the way that they normally did. He figures that his face probably looks pretty fucked up, because it _feels_ pretty fucked up and that's probably enough to create a semi-decent image of how he must look to the rest of the student body. Steve's eyes sweep the cars, occasionally locking gazes with someone. It's always brief. Those who catch his eye dip their heads again. Packs of girls that crowd together bend their heads into their circles, stealing glances that he sees, of course. The air becomes tight all of the sudden, and his lungs occasionally seem to neglect their jobs to take in air. Each stare is like another slash across his already messed-up face, until he swears that he feels blood trickling out of his cuts again and smells the metallic stench of it fill the air.

His scanning serves two purposes. Steve was never one to back down from a fight, no matter how hopeless it was. It's something that he and Billy Hargrove appeared to share: a begrudging admission for Steve, and not one that he would dare utter aloud. If these assholes wanted to stare at him like he was Bozo the goddamned circus clown, then Steve isn't going to spare them the entire view of his fucked-up face.

The other reason is Nancy. And Jonathan too, he supposes. Steve hopes that she has a ride to school now that they're…taking a break. That is the way that Steve likes to describe it. Not completely over. Just taking a break. It's far, far better than any of the alternatives.

Plus, there's the added benefit of at least knowing that the two of them won't gawk at him as if he's the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

The morning is still cold and crisp, and Steve shoves his hands in the pockets of his blazer, forcing the fabric closer into his chest. It's a gray, cloudy day. Fitting. It doesn't seem like the sun had any more reason to come back to Hawkins anymore.

By the time Steve reaches the front steps of the high school, he's positive that he hasn't seen Nancy or Jonathan anywhere in the parking lot or on the school grounds. Maybe they were taking it easy for the day? Will and Mike had both had a shitty couple of days, not that anyone here really knew the reasons behind it, so maybe the two of them were using it as an excuse to keep their siblings company.

Or maybe they're out on Lover's Lake, doing God kno—

No, no, Steve, focus.

His fears dissipate almost immediately when he catches sight of a familiar face. Jonathan walks hurriedly through the rows of cars, glancing back over his shoulder like a guilty man would do. He's dressed simply today. White t-shirt, jeans, sneakers, jacket. It creates an illusion of normalcy that Steve didn't buy for one second.

"Hey, Byers!" Steve calls.

Jonathan raises his head at the voice and freezes, his expression panicked for one brief heartbeat. It's so swift that Steve wonders if he's imagining it, but Jonathan starts moving again before he could really contemplate it, and then the dude's face back to its usual unreadable form. Jonathan's pace picks up significantly until he stands next to Steve on the front steps of the school, observing all the other kids before them.

"Hey man, " Jonathan greets him breathlessly, then adds, "you look like shit."

"So I've been told."

Jonathan snickers. Steve didn't think it was even possible for someone to snicker, but Jonathan Byers is so quiet and so reserved that even his normal laugher sounds hushed. Steve crosses his arms, "How's Nancy doing?"

There it is again. That sharp, quick expression of pure dread. Steve has seen it a few times before, and everyone wears it differently. It manifests itself in different ways. A dart of the eyes. A clench of the fists. Jonathan Byers' reaction is to furrow his eyebrows, as if he thinks he could cover his eyes with them. "She's good," is his response. Nice and controlled. And even though Steve couldn't quite see them, he figures that Jonathan's eyes would reveal a surplus of buried emotions should he choose to search them.

He decides to drop it.

"It's weird," Steve jerks his head towards the cars, "How many of them do you think even know what happened on Friday?"

Jonathan clicks his tongue thoughtfully. "Probably none of them. And none of them will ever know, anyway."

Steve bites his lip, his teeth nipping the scab in the right corner. "This is all such bullcrap, you know that?"

"Couldn't have said it better myself," is all Jonathan says.

For a minute or so, the two of them stand there, lost in each other's company. Jonathan is the first to peel away. "I have some photos I need to develop. Sorry man," is how he excuses himself, his eyebrows once again dipping down. Steve just nods in a way that he hopes is supportive, and watches Jonathan round the corner and disappear into the building, feeling slightly resigned.

And then it's Steve again, all alone on the front steps, his face looking like a battlefield and his mind buzzing like an air raid. Some kids come by him, clapping him on the shoulder. One even calls him by his old moniker. _King Steve_. Apropos, in a way. King Steve ascendant, returned from war, watching over his kingdom of paper subjects.

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	2. The Rumor

**Trigger warning for pedophilia mention**

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It starts like most things these days start—with a whisper that reaches the wrong ears.

The first four hours of school, compared to the danger and excitement of the past few days, are so mind-numbingly boring that Steve is threatening to nod off in just about every class he attends. He dozes through calculus, English lit, and environmental science until the lunch bell rings and he is allowed an hour of free time before European history kicks his ass.

Normally, seniors take off in droves to go downtown and grab lunch. It's much better than eating cafeteria food, and it allows them to avoid the dangers of having to deal directly with the lowerclassmen for a solid portion of the day. When he was a junior, Steve had wild daydreams of hopping into his car and speeding off into the distance to grab a bagel with his friends. But that all seems so far away now. Tommy and Carol have refused to speak to him since last year—not that he gives a shit—and grabbing lunch with Nancy is a possibility that he doesn't even want to exercise.

He sees her in the hallway between second and third period. She has a sweater on, the one she'd gotten a few weeks ago at the mall when she insisted that she was running short on winter clothes. She'd spent five hours with him in there, hopping from store to store and looking for sales. And Steve remembers how happy she was when she'd found the perfect one. Big and red and wooly. "Perfect for snuggling," Steve had remembered saying, wiggling his eyebrows, and she laughed. She had laughed like nothing mattered, like everything was alright.

It's strange now, being an outsider looking in. The hardest thing for Steve is believing that only a week ago, everything was completely normal. He's never realized that she was carrying so much baggage. And he should have. At least, that's what he keeps telling himself.

He wants to go and talk to her. To just walk up and say "Hey, that shit over the weekend was really fucked up. Are you okay?" or say "Hey, I know that you and Jonathan are a thing now, and I don't care, but how can we make things less awkward, not that I care, because I've got nothing to look forward to and I can barely sleep at night so just tell me you feel the same way?"

But he doesn't. Steve just watches as she crosses the hallway bisecting his and vanishes into the science wing like a ghost of someone he once knew. Which, he reminds himself, she basically is.

So, lacking the courage to even attempt casual conversation with his ex-girlfriend, Steve is out of pretty much every option for a high school senior. Instead of eating by himself in the cafeteria, he sits in the deserted history wing and resumes work on his college essays.

It's long, frustrating work, even when Nancy was at his side helping him. Since he missed early application for the University of Indiana due to issues concerning the safety of the entire world, he sets that essay aside and focuses on his common app essay. The prompt was seemingly simple to him; describe a moment in your life where you experienced personal growth. According to Nancy, however, discovering that you were going to be better at basketball than your older cousin wouldn't be considered 'personal growth' to any of the schools he has interest in.

Steve sits cross-legged in the history wing, his papers on his lap and his pencil between his teeth. He's got two topics he's been considering: the time that his dog died when he was ten years old, or the first time he heard his parents arguing. Those were the 'Nancy-approved' topics. It feels almost like cheating now that she's not at his side assisting him, but his brain is still in shut-off mode and he can't think of any other moments of personal growth besides starting to begrudgingly care about his ex-girlfriend's younger brother and his rag-tag group of monster hunting nerd friends with a death wish.

So consumed in brushing eraser shavings off his legs, Steve almost misses the passing duo of girls that say his name. Almost.

He perks up in time to see the two walking past. Their heads face forward, not looking at him, but he swears that he heard his name dropped somewhere in their conversation. "Hey!" he calls after them.

They turn. Steve recognizes one but not the other. The girl on the left is Lucy, who he was forced to partner with in one of his science classes last year. The other girl is unfamiliar to him, mostly because he hadn't been spending his time inserting himself into the lives of kids that were younger than him until he met Nancy and until her bratty adolescent weirdo troop decided to imprint on him like baby ducks.

Lucy's face goes bright red in record time, which is Steve's first signal that his ears aren't betraying him. Plus, she fails to meet his eyes when she stammers "H-hi, Steve." Her friend giggles. Strike two.

"What'cha talking about?" Steve asks as innocently as possible, putting on a smile.

Another giggle from her friend. Lucy's face has gone so red that she's starting to resemble a stop sign.

"Oh, you know, nothing much," Lucy picks her way through the conversation like it's a minefield. Steve quirks an eyebrow at her tone.

He's about to return to his paper when Lucy's friend pipes up, "Hey, Steve, is it true?"

"I'm sorry, is what true?" Steve perks his head back up, stumped.

Lucy's nudging her friend, saying "Stacy…" in a low undertone, but even she's smiling now. That's strike three right there, and Steve feels his smile evaporate.

"Well, you know," Stacy begins, a lopsided grin on her face, "Billy Hargrove says- "

"I'm going to stop you right there," Steve interrupts her, "because I don't give a shit about what Billy Hargrove says."

Both girls look taken aback. "Billy says that you broke up with Nancy Wheeler," Stacy says, unperturbed.

Well, Steve doesn't know how the hell Billy figured that out, but that's the least of his worries. Rolling his eyes, Steve lowers his head and returns his attention to his application.

"And now you're dating his sister."

Steve nearly drops his pencil.

" _Excuse me_?" he manages to get the words out, "I'm dating his _sister_? Like, his thirteen-year-old sister?"

"Oh, so you do know her!" Stacy notices brightly, as if this confirms her wild-ass rumor.

Anger, an anger so hot that Steve wouldn't have been surprised if it deep-fries his insides, starts to overtake him. "What else has Billy been saying about me?"

Stacy obliges, looking as though all of her dreams have just come true. "Billy said that he came to Jonathan Byers' house last Friday and you were there with his sister, and when he was going to take her home you responded with 'you better go before your sister and I call the cops' or something like that. And when he tried to take her home, you kicked the shit out of him and threw him out of the house." Her eyes suddenly searched his face, and Steve became acutely aware of his busted lip, bruised cheek, and cut-up temple. "Seems like he gave you a pretty bad beating as well, Steve."

Stunned, he's about to make another comment when he realizes that everything he says is just going to further indict him, and so Steve makes the hard decision of swallowing down every single cuss that he knows and keeping silent.

Stacy looks positively giddy at the news, but Lucy's smile has disappeared and she looks more disgusted than anything else. Which was fair; if Steve believed one of his classmates was in a relationship with a kid five years younger than he was, he'd probably be three tiers above uncomfortable as well.

"Literally none of that is true," Steve finds his voice again, trying to keep his temper reeled in and failing spectacularly, "And you both are morons for believing it, you know that, right?"

At once, he senses that that was the wrong thing to say. Now both girls are scowling at him, and Steve immediately wishes that he'd kept his big fat mouth shut. Lucy and Stacy exchange a dark look. "Well…" it's Lucy who speaks this time, "I mean, you did break up with Nancy, right?"

Steve is absolutely floored by the question. "I-I mean, well, yeah, we did," he stammers, "but that doesn't automatically mean I'm dating Billy Hargrove's freaking stepsister."

"They're stepsiblings?" Stacy asks.

Fuck his big fat fucking mouth.

He must've looked like the world's most guilty imbecile, sitting there with his mouth hanging open. Lucy and Stacy share one more uncomfortable glance and then turn away. "See you around, Steve," is all Lucy says as they depart his presence, and they're laughing and shooting glances back his way before he's even out of earshot.

And Steve just sits there, dumbfounded. The weight of the situation hasn't entirely crashed down upon him yet, but he assumes it will in due time. He resists the urge to crumple up his college essay and instead abandons that for the bathroom. It's deserted, thank God, so Steve just stands there and thinks, alone. He doesn't know when he first reaches for the paper towel dispenser, but before he realizes it, shredded pieces litter the ground like an early autumn snowfall. Steve stares at himself in the mirror, ashen-faced. Runs a hand through his hair as if to confirm that yes, he's still actually here and he's still actually alive. It feels like he's detached, in a sense, and the only thing that he can feel is an unwavering, unbearable amount of upcoming dread that's about to fall upon his shoulders.

Steve stares into the mirror of the men's bathroom, his hands white from gripping the edges of the sink, until the lunch bell rings again and he's forced to gather his things and head to the rest of his classes.

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	3. The Dethroning

**Hello! Thank you all so much for the lovely reception this story is getting!**

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So that's where it stands. Billy Hargrove, scum of the earth and STD-infected penis of Hawkins High School, is able to get away with attempted violence and physical harm of one little kid, possibly four (and, you know, Steve's _actual_ physical harm) by saying that Steve Harrington is in a borderline-pedophiliac relationship with his thirteen-year-old stepsister.

A part of Steve—a hopeful part of him that he should have no business listening to—briefly wonders if the entire thing will just die down and blow over within the week. But oh, no, it doesn't. It _grows_ , and it grows _fast_. And it's far, far worse than he expects.

By Wednesday, the whole high school knows the story in some form or another. By Friday, the entire goddamn school system has caught wind of Steve Harrington, the former king turned so desperate that he was now pursuing middle schoolers. Once the end of the week rolls around, even the elementary school kids are emboldened enough to begin heckling him in the streets, no doubt encouraged by older siblings or parents that have heard the rumors for themselves.

Reactions to the news range on a scale of Lucy to Stacy. Some think it's a huge riot, and treat the entire thing as if it's Christmas come early. It comes with a lot of jeering, especially from the high schoolers. Steve can't walk eight steps down the hall without someone making a stupid kissy face at him, as if they consider the entire thing to be a fun rumor through the grapevine.

Most of the reactions fall into the category of disgust or worse. While the taunts are annoying at best, infuriating at worst, Steve can't stand the looks of pure hatred that seem to fill every other persons' eyes when he walks by. It's enough to nearly make him stop going to school. Not that it would help, because the news spreads so fast that now each person in Hawkins has heard the news and has made their own opinions. Now, Steve isn't even able to go down his street without someone curling their lip or spitting in his direction.

On Thursday, it happens; he catches sight of Billy Hargrove for the first time since that night in the Byers house. Billy is leaning up against his locker, making small talk with two freshmen girls. He's grinning broadly as he lets the girls fawn over him, clearly reveling in the attention. Steve lowers his head and, resolved not to even look at the asshole, stalks past him. He makes sure that he's on the opposite side of the hallway as he does so, barging past everyone in his path.

One eye is trained on his forward motion and the other is on Billy, but one of the freshman catches onto his game. She frowns, her face darkening, and leans into Billy's ear as Steve starts to make his way past him. Billy raises his head and the two boys lock eyes for the briefest of moments.

There's a definite crookedness to his nose that makes Steve oddly satisfied that he at least got some damage in, even though it was far less than the black eye and pseudo-concussion from plate smashing. Billy Hargrove's eyes are cold, his smile not reaching past the lower half of his face. Yet he still wears that damn smile. With his cold eyes and huge grin, it comes off less as a student who hates his guts—it comes more across as a guy who knows he's won a battle that he understood he was never going to lose.

And then Steve moves forward, swept up in the crowd of oncoming traffic, but he can't forget the look of triumph that Billy Hargrove sears into his brain.

The whole school is against him now. Hell, the whole town is against him now. Whether people think it's humorous or despicable, they all seem to agree that Steve, with his busted face and inability to deny that he was with Max Mayfield on Friday night, is now a man on death row, and deservingly so.

His parents catch wind of the story on Thursday. Apparently, people have now resorted to mailing his family letters demanding that he run himself out of town for doing things that have already made his mother cry by the time he even gets home. Steve's grounded the same night. His mother's tears haven't ceased, and she's continuously dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief and sniffling. His father goes the more classic route: shouting, threatening, shaming. And Steve just takes it all, resigned to his fate. It doesn't stop him from defending himself, but he knows deep down that his efforts are falling on deaf ears.

"Dad, you don't actually believe that I'm in a relationship with a middle schooler, do you?" he asks, his voice flat, tired of asking the question.

"Then what were you doing at the Byers house with Maxine Mayfield, Steve? Hm?"

"I told you, I was babysitting."

His mother whimpers. "Babysitting…" she murmurs, as if she'd just heard her son utter a confession.

In the end, the hammer comes down. No car for two weeks, no outside contact for two weeks. He has to take himself off the basketball team effective immediately. He was basically under house arrest; he was to go to school and come home, that's it. And absolutely no talking to the Mayfield-Hargrove's.

"You're a disgrace to this family," his dad tells him, "You hear that, Steven? A fucking disgrace."

Later that evening, Steve sits on the end of his bed, decompressing from the three-hour scolding. But it's those last few sentences that are still ringing in his head like church chimes.

A disgrace.

Correction, a _fucking_ disgrace.

His lights are off by eight-thirty that night. He has a headache from crying, and his college essays are in shreds at the foot of his bed.

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	4. The Defenders

**Hello everyone! Thank you for all the reviews, follows, and favorites!**

 **A special thanks to my friend Urge on AO3 (it's cross-posted there as well) who beta-ed both this chapter and the next one for me.**

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Fortunately, he has some allies on his side. Unfortunately, they aren't exactly the most reliable eyewitnesses to prove his virtue.

Well, that isn't entirely true. Steve is positive that the only reason he isn't in jail on speculation alone at this point is because Hopper knows of his innocence. He might not be able to tell the town the whole truth without being thrown out of Hawkins by riled up suburban nuclear families (or getting assassinated by those bastards who run Hawkins Lab), but he staunchly ignores the stream of letters that flow into the police station calling for Steve's head on a pike.

Mrs. Byers, bless her heart, is also doing her best. She's fierce and reliable and won't stand for people spreading rumors in her presence. She guards the general store where she works like a mother cat, and Steve often hears stories of Mrs. Byers chasing out people who are talking about him with a broom. It's not much, but Steve can't help but admire her zealousness. If only people took her a little more seriously. The incidents of last year still linger in peoples' minds and conversations, and he has a sinking suspicion that people remember Mrs. Byers not as the woman who was certain that her son wasn't dead but as a crazy loon going around and tearing up her house after going mad with grief. Still, it's something, and for Steve it's more than enough.

That's about it for adults, though. Pretty much every other adult in Hawkins want him gone. So, that leaves the group that's _clearly_ the most creditable: the middle schoolers. Mike, Lucas, and Dustin are all vehement supporters of Steve, insisting that they were there on Friday night the entire time and saw absolutely nothing. Even tiny Will Byers, fresh off a freaking demonic possession, asserts that he was there the whole time with his friends and taught their babysitter how to play Dungeons and Dragons (a game that Steve hasn't even heard of, never mind played) while his mother and brother were off running errands out of town.

Ironically enough, his strongest defender seems to be Max Mayfield herself. Steve expected her to be angry, violent, despondent, all the works. But the reality is far more extreme. Whenever he hears news of her, it sounds as though she's trying to unleash hell on every single person in this miserable town. Screaming, cussing, and boasting a pure outright denial of anything her stepbrother has been accusing them of.

But that's all just passing information while Steve's on lockdown. He hasn't been allowed to see any of them, nor have they been allowed to see him. That previous Monday is the equivalent to going to Disneyland now that his life has gotten comparably more miserable since the rumors got circulated and shit hit the fan. Each day brings a new piece of information to him until the story starts to piece itself together. It comes together like the world's worst jigsaw puzzle, piece by increasingly ludicrous piece. The hero of the story? Why, Billy Hargrove, of course: desperately trying to keep his younger sister Maxine from seeing her forbidden love. But on Friday, yearning for Steve's embrace, she sneaks out the window to see him. Together they head to the Byers, where the eighth graders give them refuge until Billy storms in upon Steve and Max doing…gross, but fortunately non-intimate things. The two seniors engage in, as Kenny Wilbur describes, "gentlemen's fisticuffs" until Steve knocks Billy out cold with an uppercut. Defeated, Billy departs in shame, begging his little sister to come with him. He's in tears, of course, as he's just so overwhelmed with emotion; Steve's almost positive Billy inserted that into the story himself to make himself seem vulnerable to the freshman draped on his sides. The next day, Billy pleads that Max stop seeing that disgusting Steve Harrington. Tearfully, the siblings embrace each other, sobbing and professing their love for the family.

Steve doesn't think he'd find more bullshit in a cow pasture.

But the story does its job, and that's all that matters. It's plausible, the timelines match, and Steve has been put into a position where he can't deny that he was at the Byers last Friday night. Altogether, it makes going to school absolute torture. Posters spring up almost overnight, saying a variety of things that Steve wishes he could unsee. People are ruthless, and no one there gives him any support.

Jonathan and Nancy have been quiet as the events play out, but Steve can't blame either of them, much as he tries to. Jonathan comes under fire for apparently allowing Steve and Max to partake in their endeavors while he's gone, and to these stupid high schoolers, he's just as much to blame for this entire thing as Steve is.

But Nancy…oh, Nancy. For as many different "Steve Harrington is a pedophile" posters there are, there are just as many "Nancy Wheeler is a slut" posters to compliment them. Some call her a whore; others make fun of the fact that Steve's apparently dumped her for a kid her brother's age. He sees her in the halls sometimes, brushing tears out of her eyes as girls taunt her across the way. Despite Steve's longing to talk to her again, he knows that she probably wants nothing to do with him anymore. And so, Steve comes to terms with the fact that Nancy Wheeler is as good as gone from his life, and there isn't a single fucking thing he can do to fix it.

To him, that's a thousand times worse than what any of these kids can do to him.

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	5. The Revelation

**Hello again! Thanks so much for all the follows, favs, and reviews you guys have been leaving me!**

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Two weeks go by at a snail's pace, but they eventually do go by. And just in time, because Steve's feeling like he's about to check himself into the loony bin. It'll be good to finally have his car back. It's his only form of escapism at this point, and by the time fourteen days are over he's longing to just drive, drive, _drive_ as far away as he possibly can. Who knows, maybe he'll drive so far that he could leave this stupid-ass town in his dust.

He goes down the stairs to find his father waiting for him at the table. His old man nods to the chair opposite him, and Steve quickly fills the seat. For a minute or two, no one says anything. Finally, Mr. Harrington takes the keys to the BMW out of his pocket and places them on the table.

Before Steve can snatch the things and book it out the door, his father retracts them. "Not so fast," he says. "You get these back on one condition."

Steve stifles a groan. "And that is?"

"You drive your ass over to Mrs. Hargrove and apologize to her."

Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope. Steve shakes his head hard. "I'm not going over there. Not in a million years."

Steve's father just shakes his head in return. "Really, Steve?" he says coldly. "Just buy the damn woman a thing of flowers and say that you're sorry for getting her family involved in all of this. It's the least you can do to take responsibility for yourself."

Hah, responsibility. Steve wants to take the mere concept of responsibility and shove it up Billy Hargrove's crusty asshole. Still, he supposes it's a small price to pay for having his freedom back. He takes the keys and leaves the house, making sure to slam the door behind him.

Thirty-five minutes later, he's on the front doorstep of the Mayfield-Hargrove's, a twenty-eight-dollar bouquet of lilies and irises in hand. The house is smaller than he expects. It has a wraparound screen porch and a couple of steps leading up to it. The remnants of a rose bush stand against the wall, killed by the mid-November snowfall. Powder crunches underfoot as Steve makes his way up the steps and across the stone walkway to the door. He adjusts his coat, puts the flowers in the crook of his elbow, and knocks three times on the door.

It's Max who answers. Her face collapses at the sight of him, and her head whizzes back inside, already attempting to slam the door in his face. Steve stops it just before it closes. She tries to force it shut anyway, grunting from the effort. "What are you doing here?" she hisses between shoves against the door.

He chooses to ignore her cold greeting. "Hey, Max," he salutes her, irked at her continued efforts to try and take off his fingers with the doorframe, "Your mom home or something? I have gifts."

At that, she finally relents in her efforts to shut him out. Max's face is unusually devoid of emotion. "Steve, you can't be here," she tells him without a hint of sarcasm. "Go. Away."

Steve shrugs. "Look, I'm only here to give these to your mom," he brandishes his bouquet in her face, "And then I'll be on my way, so let's just make this quick."

The kid looks as though she's about to vomit right there on the front steps, and Steve has to fight down the urge to ask her what's wrong. "My mom isn't here," her voice has gone soft.

"Alright then, your dad here? I ain't picky."

"Steve, you— "

"Maxine," a voice calls from further in the house, "who's at the door?"

It's honestly astonishing how fast the color drains from Max's face. She spins around in time for her and Steve to catch sight of the newcomer. For a brief heartbeat, Steve assumes it's Billy, and gets ready to throw down the bouquet and roll up his sleeves. But it's not, though he's not far off. The man in question is clearly Mr. Hargrove: Billy's father and Max's stepfather. He bears enough of a resemblance to his son for Steve to confuse him from a distance, what with his blond hair and mustache. He's reasonably tall, and the closer he comes, the larger he seems to get. The eyes are the same too—steel blue, like the ocean during a rainstorm.

Mr. Hargrove regards Steve with a seeming indifference, but Max looks as though her world is ending. She recoils when her stepfather speaks again, "Maxine, who's this?"

She doesn't speak for a second, but she pipes up quickly, her voice high pitched and fearful, "That's Steve Harrington, Dad."

"Ah," Mr. Hargrove's eyes spark with recognition, but they don't get any warmer. Steve feels his palms start to get a little sweaty, "I see. Your little boy-toy."

Max's face flushes, "He's not— "

She can't continue whatever she has on her mind before Steve flashes her a warning look. It's quick, and he's not even attempting to hide it, but he hopes that it's enough to convey what he's trying to say. _Shut up. Play the part. Let me handle this._ Max's face morphs back into a passing shadow of its former self—irritation and defiance—and she doesn't finish the thought. Thus, Steve returns his attention to Mr. Hargrove.

The older man hasn't made a move unless you count rubbing his chin in contemplation. "Maxine, get inside the house," he orders.

She doesn't need to be told twice. Wearing a look so helpless Steve could only wonder what on earth he's about to get himself into, Max disappears into her house and closes the door. Steve strongly wishes she hadn't. He dislikes standing alone with Mr. Hargrove in the snowy walkway of his front yard, especially considering how scared Max seemed to be, but he's here now. No turning back.

Mr. Hargrove takes a step off his porch into the snow. Steve has to fight the need to scramble backwards. "So, Steve Harrington, what brings you to my house?" Mr. Hargrove asks.

Steve holds up the bouquet. From the corner of his eye, he can see Max peeking out from behind the curtains of the living room window.

"Hmm," Mr. Hargrove's now standing pretty much right in front of him, the flowers being the only line of defense between the two. "Those for my wife, I assume?"

"Yes, Mr. Hargrove."

"You've got some nerve coming here, Harrington."

Like father, like son. Steve doesn't think he's ever heard his last name spoken with such scorn. It's actually kind of unnerving. "I know," he says, "But I'm sorry about all this. I, err, I just want to make things right."

Mr. Hargrove chuckles. Steve smiles nervously.

"You know, Steve…I can call you just Steve, right?" Steve nods. "Good, because this entire thing is just a riot. Don't you think?" Steve nods again. "I mean, you? Canoodling with my daughter? Whatta bunch of bullcrap, am I right?"

It's right there when Steve let's his guard down.

Wrong choice.

Before he's even aware of what's happening, he's on his back, Mr. Hargrove standing above him with one foot on his chest. There's a vague pain somewhere in his stomach area and the back of his head is throbbing. Mr. Hargrove leans in close, so close that Steve can smell the tobacco on his disgusting yellow teeth.

"Well, Steve," he whispers, which is somehow a million times more terrifying than shouting, "I don't think it's very funny."

Suddenly, there's a foot on his neck and a load of force on his windpipe. Steve's throat hitches up. He stares into Mr. Hargrove's eyes. Those cold, emotionless eyes. He can't breathe.

"If you go near my daughter, or my family, again, I will be making calls to the police," the pressure on Steve's neck increases. He can't breathe.

"I'll have to. After all, there'll be a body that'll have to be fished out of the quarry."

He can't breathe.

"Do I make myself clear?"

 _He can't breathe._

The foot on his throat vanishes. Air rushes back into his body, his first gasp sweet on his lips. Steve feels like he's about to cough up his left lung, and he turns over onto his side, breathless and wheezing. But a hand finds itself in his hair and yanks him up hard, so Steve's top half of his body is basically off the ground. "Look at me when I'm talking to you, boy," a gravelly voice says to him.

Steve wrenches his eyes open.

Mr. Hargrove regards him with contempt, his lip curled. "Do I make myself clear?" he annunciates every single word with deadly clarity.

"Yes."

"Yes what?"

Jesus Christ, any more of this and Steve would be on his hands and knees, begging for salvation like a sinner on the Sabbath. "Yes _sir_ ," he forces out through clenched teeth.

Now smiling, Mr. Hargrove holds onto Steve's hair a second longer before throwing his face back onto the stone walkway. As Steve lies there groaning, he hears the footsteps of combat boots slowly fade away, and then it culminates in the slamming of the front door. And then it's over, like it never even happened.

Steve lies there feeling like a drunkard for a few minutes, recovering from his second beating by a Hargrove in two weeks. He honestly wouldn't be surprised if Mrs. Mayfield came roaring into the driveway just so she could stomp him with her heels and add to the tally. It's right there that he hears the shuddering of the camera.

It takes all his willpower to roll over the other way, but Steve does eventually sit up to find a maroon Nissan 300ZX parked on the street. There's an echoing laugh coming through the window as the passengers watch him grovel on the ground. He can't see who it is, but the window is down and someone is just having their way with taking photos of him. The camera flashes periodically, freezing the image of him lying on the Mayfield-Hargrove's lawn after his thrashing. Who knows how long they'd been sitting there, watching Steve get the shit kicked out of him?

Fighting down panic, Steve's about to shout curses when the camera retracts, the window closes, and the car peels down the road. The screeching of tires fills the air as the Nissan disappears down the road, and it's almost like Steve can feel the tire burns on his guts as he watches it depart.

He picks himself up and wobbles away on unsteady feet. Max has vanished from the window. The bouquet of flowers lays in the front yard, damaged and broken and discarded. As Steve struggles into his car, he can't help but think that it's a perfect metaphor. Or analogy. Whatever. It's like that last couple of minutes has drained more than just is breath, because Steve's cold, physically and emotionally.

He drives as far as he can, just like he promises himself. Lights blur, streets change, and cars fade away into noise. It's almost like blacking out, because he doesn't really know where he is come a few hours later, but all he knows is that he's far away from Hawkins and that's honestly perfectly fine by him. He ends the day at some diner in Wellington with flickering lights and jukebox pop, sipping too-sweet coffee as strangers mill around him. He stares at the rotating display of pies and cakes on the counter and watches a college game on TV that's so overlaid with static that Steve can't see which team is playing who.

He basks in the anonymity of it all for a while, soaking in the complete indifference that these guys treat him with. But that pleasure ends in due time—around his third cup of coffee, he estimates. He's still cold, and hollow, and detached. There are moments where Steve can still feel the imprint of Mr. Hargrove's boot on his throat, and sometimes as the coffee goes down it still feels like his airway's blocked. He mows through about five cups, yet nothing he drinks brings any warmth back into his body.

And for the first time in his life, as he stares at the empty seats before him and listens to the jovial sounds of the other patrons, Steve comes to grips with the fact that he's completely, utterly alone.

He makes sure to leave the waiter a nice tip. He's out the door before anyone can say anything to him. There's a bunch of napkins stuffed into his coffee cup, and he makes sure to throw the rest of them out so the guy doesn't have to clean them all up. And then he heads back home, blaring Billy Joel's _The Stranger_ , stealing glances at his swollen eyes in the mirror, wondering how much of him it would take to turn around—to keep going to Chicago and beyond.

But he doesn't turn around.

Because he already knows the answer.

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	6. The Babysitter

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"I'm fucking ruined, man. Fucking ruined."

"You're being overdramatic."

"Easy for you to say. I don't even think you kids understand the meaning of the word 'consequence'."

"Consequence, c-o-n-s-e— "

"Stop, stop! Jesus Christ, you're annoying. You know that, right?"

Dustin smiles widely in the shotgun seat in spite of Steve's harsh words. He places his hands over his chest like he's been wounded. "Don't say that! You love me, Steve."

Steve can't help the involuntary flinch that comes with that word now. Every time he hears it, it's like being jabbed with a cattle prod.

This is how low he's sunk. Never in a million years did Steve think that he'd be hanging out with Dustin Henderson after school. It's been three and a half weeks since the gate was closed and the news got leaked, and virtually nothing's changed aside from the fact that Steve's now allowed out of the house, a privilege that he takes full advantage of. When he's not at school, he can be found anywhere in Hawkins that's not his place. To be fair, there are only so many places he can go before he's exhausted every option in this tiny-ass town. So now Steve has to resort for the only option he has left: babysitting. Or at least, that's what he calls it so he doesn't have to tell people that the only humans in town that won't give him revolted looks are a gang of hot-blooded juvenile dorks.

For the past three days, he picks up Dustin, Mike, and Will after school and just looks after them for a few hours. He's not even getting paid to do it; he just wants to. Lucas and Max go their own separate way, and Steve's more than happy to let them do so. He has absolutely no intention of invoking Mr. Hargrove's wrath again, but he'd be damned if Max has to suffer for his stupidity. Steve's grateful that Lucas is spending time with her, because anything is better than helplessly watching her go back home with her sadistic and unpredictable stepfamily.

As for the rest of them, their adventures usually vary. He always takes them to the library for an hour so he can at least say that he was helping them with their schoolwork (even though these goddamn dipshits appear to be infinitely smarter than he is). After that, they treat themselves. Steve's got no shortage of money, so they take turns deciding what to do.

Tuesdays are Mike's turn, who decides that he wants to see a movie. Steve quashes the idea of taking them to _A Nightmare on Elm Street_ despite the boys' pleading, reminding them that it was a rated-R film and the only way he was going to let them into a movie like that was if they found something they all wanted to see. "Don't you think we've all had enough horror for a little while?" he implores, his voice dry with sarcasm. All three of them shake their heads.

In the end, they see something called _The Terminator_. Another R-rated film of course, because it seems like the only reason these three want to put up with him is because he can sneak them into movies they have no business being in, but at least this one isn't trying on purpose to scare him. And hey, it turns out to be a surprisingly good film. Everyone walks out of the theater satisfied, and Steve has to jokingly remind the little shits that they can't go running around saying that Steve Harrington is letting them slip into inappropriate movies.

Wednesdays are Will's turn, and it's a unanimous decision that they're going to teach Steve the basics of Dungeons and Dragons. Before Steve realizes it, he's sitting on the floor of Byers' living room, mounds of papers in his lap and a basketful of jargon being thrown around the room so loudly that it makes his head hurt. When the noise dies down and the air settles, he begins to grasp the basics…sort of. Apparently, Mike's some guy called the Dungeon Master, and Steve needs to make a character for himself. Will sits at his side, giving him pointers as Steve fills out the character sheet. By the time he's done, he's apparently Steveington the Sovereign, a chaotic good half-elf rogue with a bigass sword—the biggest Mike would allow him to wield—that's got a bunch of other stats that Steve doesn't know what to do with. Will remains at his side for the game, or 'campaign', as Dustin and Mike keep reminding him, and offers to help with stats and experience. Steve's more than happy handing the papers over to the younger boy and letting him work out whatever the hell all this nerd-fun was.

Dungeons and Dragons isn't bad, but it's certainly time-consuming. Steve's thankful that he had the foresight to make these guys do some of their homework beforehand because before he knows it, it's seven-thirty and he needs to get Mike and Dustin home for dinner. And again, not that Steve would ever admit it, but he had a half-decent time now that he sorta-kinda gets what the hell he's doing.

But Thursdays are empty. Will has a dentist appointment and Mike has bailed on them for an unspecified reason, so it's just Steve and Dustin today. They sit together in the BMW off the road as Dustin decides what their activity will be for the day. Steve lets him ramble for the time being, lost in his own thoughts.

As it turns out, the assholes who were taking photos of him decided to go to the paper about it as if he was committing a crime. On Thursday, Steve wakes up to three copies of the paper on his doorstep, his face apparently important enough to be plastered in a column on the front page. He sneaks them away before his mother sees it and dies of a heart attack, but he knows that's far from the end. That day at school is the closest thing to a living hell he's sure to experience before he's dead and buried. Kids keep throwing the papers at him throughout class, and only once or twice to the teachers make moves to stop. By the time the final bell rings, he's been clocked in the head by rolled up issues of _The Hawkins Herald_ about forty times. Front pages of the paper join the poster from before on the doors of lockers, making walking through the halls the equivalent of wandering through a tunnel of his own mistakes and failures.

Steve's mind is somewhere far away as he scans the paper for the umpteenth time. He's read the article enough times already, so he's sure that he's participating in pure masochism at this point. The headline reads _Accused_ _Steven Harrington attempts visit to Mayfield-Hargrove's in aftermath of relationship revelation_. Ugh. Just when he thought his situation couldn't get any lower, it seems as though God decided to toss him down a shovel.

"Hey, hey!" Dustin snaps Steve out of his despair by yanking the paper out of his hands. As Steve starts protesting, the kid rolls down the window and chucks the thing out onto the side of the road.

"Hey, you little dipshit! What the fuck was that for!?" Steve shouts, more alarmed than angry.

Dustin turns, hitting him with a look so severe Steve would've thought him a thirty-year-old instead of a thirteen-year-old. "Are you going to sit here all day or are we going to go to the arcade and beat Max's Dig Dug score?" he demands. "Mike and I have been trying for the last three weeks to beat the damn thing."

Great, video games. Another thing that's just up his alley. Suppressing a sigh, Steve adjusts the gear shift and pulls off the side of the road, heading for the arcade's general direction because he's not entirely sure where it is.

 _Remember, you wanted companionship,_ he reminds himself coldly, glancing at Dustin, _so suck it up and make the damn kid happy._

Dustin doesn't speak for a little while as Steve drives them across town. And it's alright for two minutes, but by the time five minutes are gone Steve's starting to get worried. "You okay?" he asks.

He hears Dustin laugh, which wasn't really the reaction he was going for, but he follows it up with a question of his own. "Why do you keep torturing yourself like that?"

"I'm not torturing myself," In the past few weeks, Steve's grown accustomed to falling back on the defensive.

"Seriously, Steve?" Dustin scoffs, "You keep reading that article. Why do you care so much about what it says? You know it's all bullshit anyway."

"Language, shithead."

"Fine. But you know that none of it is true anyway, right?"

Steve huffs, running a hand through his hair. "It doesn't really matter what I think, Henderson. As far as this town's concerned, I'm as good as guilty. Let's see," he holds up his hand and starts counting off on his fingers, "my parents think I'm a disgrace to the family, I can't talk to Nancy and Jonathan without making their lives more miserable, no one in town wants to hear my side of the story, Billy Hargrove's painted himself like some kinda hero, and now I'm stuck driving you and your friends around town like a cabby!"

He instantly regrets that last one, but Dustin's face doesn't fall at the comment. That frankly concerns Steve even more, because now he doesn't know if Dustin's aware that he'd rather be hanging out with kids his own age, or if Steve's mentioned it so many times before this that he's grown accustomed to this sort of self-deprecation.

Dustin's face is pressed against the glass window of the car, watching the trees whip by. "Nancy, Jonathan, Mrs. Byers, the Chief…you do know that they all try and tell people you didn't do it, yeah?"

"I mean, duh, of course I do," Steve drums his hand against the steering wheel, "But, like, I feel like they sort of have to. Besides, you think they'd all probably be singing my innocence if they didn't know the truth?" He scoffs, "Because I don't think so."

The younger boy turns back to look at him, his eyes hard. "Well, you know you're innocent, right?" he asks pointedly, "so what's the deal? Do you think we wouldn't help you out?"

Steve opens his mouth but closes it again. While he sits there, Dustin continues, "There was this seventh grader in school a few days ago that said that you and Max were making out in the football shed last week. So, I went up and I punched him in the face."

"Please tell me you did not do that," Steve groans.

Dustin grins. His newly grown teeth compliment his smile nicely, and it's easy to see why he's so eager to show them off. "Oh yeah I did," he sounds so proud of himself, but all Steve wants to do is slam his own head into the dashboard in frustration, "And I got a week's worth of detention, but it was worth it."

Alright, he's had enough. Fuming, Steve rapidly flips the turn signal and pulls over to the side of the road. Dustin's giving him weird looks, but he puts the car in park and glares at the younger boy, his anger boiling over.

"Why are you doing that!?" he snarls, "Why are you throwing away your personal life for me? I can handle my goddamn self and now you're throwing punches at every kid that talks about me and Max? Dustin, do me a favor and grow the _hell up_." He leans back into the seat, suddenly exhausted. There's a weight that's settled on his chest that's pinning him there, and it seems to be draining all his energy. "Please, just stop," he breathes, "I'm not worth all this."

"Boom! And there you have it," Dustin crosses his arms, a smug look growing on his features.

When Steve gives him a quizzical look, his misery briefly forgotten, Dustin rolls his eyes. "This is why your life is sucking now," he announces as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Because Billy Hargrove is a spineless piece of shit?"

"Well that too, but…" Dustin pauses for a heartbeat, "You think that you don't deserve to be helped."

Steve says nothing, so Dustin takes the opportunity to continue. "You've got some sort of idea that you don't deserve any kind of support. Steve, you're literally couldn't have gotten it more backwards if your brain started moonwalking."

There's a few moments of awkward silence between the two of them before Steve finds his voice again. "You didn't really punch out a seventh grader for talking about me, did you?"

"What? No." The kid's still grinning like the little shit he is. "Please. I just wanted to see if you'd react. Besides, people are so scared of Max that no one wants to talk about it, because she's already threatened to rip people's ears off if they mention anything about it while she's around."

Steve snorts, halfway torn between amusement and exasperation. The weight on his chest seems to be dissipating. Or it's just becoming lighter. He can't tell the difference, nor does he care. "That girl's one crazy-ass kid. You all are, you know that?"

Dustin beams as if it's a compliment and puffs out his chest. "Like I said; you love me, Steve Harrington."

This time, Steve manages to resist the flinch. He ruffles Dustin's hair—or at least what he can get his hand on from under that stupid baseball cap he always wears—and pulls the car back onto the road. The arcade leads to the most enjoyable day of them all. It's nice to get some one-on-one time with Dustin, who's easily the most laidback of the younger kids. And he swears like a sailor, which Steve can at least find some appreciation for. By the time the sun goes down and they have to leave the arcade, Dustin hasn't beaten Max's Dig Dug score, but he has gotten a new record on Pac Man and even managed to beat Dragon's Lair. Steve mostly hangs back, sometimes dabbling in games that Dustin says are easier (they never are) and supplying the kid with extra quarters and an ear to listen to nerd nonsense. It's oddly calming, all this video game mumbo-jumbo. Something about it seems so static, so unchanging. Dustin claims that it's the patterns, because there's formulas and strategies for each game. It's interesting, in a way. And for the first time in three weeks, Steve forgets about the Upside-Down and the Demogorgons and the newspapers and the accusations and fucking Billy Hargrove and actually finds something around this despicable town to enjoy.

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	7. The Return

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Thanksgiving comes and goes, and to Steve's undying relief, the news about his supposed scandal seems to be starting to die down. Oh, school still sucks, but it's always sucked, and at least the newspapers and posters are cleaned up over break. Thus, he returns to school on Monday to sparkling hallways and a whole bunch of dirty stares, but dirty stares he could live with. Even if they're perpetuated by Billy's continued taunting of him when he thinks he's not listening.

It takes a while, but Steve musters up the courage to return to the lunchroom. Because hell, he's sick and tired of giving these assholes what they want and ducking out of sight. Dustin's right, even though it pains him to acknowledge the wisdom of a preteen. As he enters the cafeteria, his mind flashes back to his thoughts nearly a month ago. If they wanted to stare at his ugly mug, then he was going to give it to them. All. Day. Long.

The conversations don't cease, but heads do turn. He feels every single pair of eyes on him as he crosses the room, feels the blistering heat of their stares and the pinching weight of their judgement. As Steve makes his way across the floor, he catches sight of Nancy. She's eating lunch with some of her other friends, and hasn't noticed that he's made a triumphant return to what used to be his old stomping grounds. He looks for Jonathan for a moment too before he remembers that the dude's got late lunch and will come in next period.

For a quick, headstrong heartbeat, Steve considers wandering over to Nancy's table and just sitting himself down. They're junior girls, stupid junior girls, and he's probably enough in their good graces to sit down and eat in privacy. And he's about to go do it, but a girl next to Nancy nudges her and points at him. Nancy and Steve lock eyes only for the shortest of moments, but it's more than enough. He can't read her in that fast a time, but there's something there, he's sure of it. The girl at Nancy's side laughs and nudges the friend on her other side, and Nancy's mouth grows into a thin line. Or a strained sort of smile. Something like that.

Steve mimics the smile back, and promptly turns and moves along.

It's like the wild flash of courage is gone by the time he finds a place to sit. It's at an empty table in the corner of the cafeteria, next to the windows. It's private, and it's not as bad as he expects. After all, there's a nice view of the flurries that are coming down over the football field and the white noise that comes with the lunchroom is much easier to bear than the agonizing silence of the hallways where he used to eat. Slowly, Steve unwraps his sandwich from the plastic wrap and starts to eat as fast as he possibly can.

He's so engrossed in his lunch that he doesn't notice someone standing off on his side until they decide to just set their things down at the seat across from him. Steve practically jumps halfway out of his chair when Nancy slams her lunch tray down on the table and plants herself on the bench. There's an unusually plain look on her face, devoid of its usual passion and fire. Her hair is down. It reaches her collarbone now. It's like her expression; simple, plain, but it says a lot without really saying much at all.

"Nancy," Steve says stupidly. Her head perks up from her chicken sandwich, and he quickly regathers his wits, "what are you doing here?"

"Eating," she says it like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

Steve's eyes dart back and forth. Nancy's arrival at his table has, needless to say, turned heads again. He feels each and every pair of eyes on them that steal glances and then turn away, no doubt to giggle or gossip or whatever. The world seems to constrict, and it's almost as though he can feel their breath on his neck and their taunting hands rubbing on his shoulders. He has no idea how Nancy is shrugging the feeling off. She takes a bite of her sandwich and looks at him with her head cocked slightly. There's a hint of concern breaking through that façade now, but it's small. Still, it's more comforting than anything he's experienced in a while.

He leans in close, keeping his voice down. "You should go back and sit with your friends," he tells her, even though it pains him to do so, "Don't bring this on yourself."

"I don't want to sit with them," she tells him bluntly, shrugging her shoulders. "I want to sit with you."

"Nance, don't—"

"Steve." And there it goes. The compassion is driven out and replaced with a hard determination. The two opposite ends of Nancy Wheeler. God, Steve misses that expression, even if it still does slightly intimidate him. "I'm sitting here, and that's that."

 _And that's that._ Steve hangs onto those words with a slight grin into his turkey sandwich. God, what a Wheeler thing to say. He must be hanging around Mike too much.

They eat the rest of their meals mostly in silence. The stares melt and the lunchroom expands as more time passes. Nancy's presence is a lighter in a dark cave: small but persistent—a starting point, if nothing else. They finish their meals together and leave the lunchroom together, ignoring the walls of turned heads that he can't see and whispers that he can't hear, his gaze only for the girl that didn't give up on him, even when he gave up on himself.

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	8. The Talk

**Trigger warning for uses of the word f*ggot in this chapter**

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Steve runs into Hopper by chance outside of the gas station on the outskirts of Hawkins one Sunday morning. Hopper looks half-awake when he pulls into the place, and Steve feels not too peachy himself as he watches the guy fumble over at the coffee maker while he searches for breakfast. He hasn't talked to the chief of police since they closed the gate, but now he's kicking himself at not chatting Hopper up sooner. As it turns out, he's a surprisingly easygoing dude once he gets a coffee and a donut in either hand. They fill up their cars, Hopper buys Steve a donut, and the two of them take in the chilly December morning against the side of the sheriff's car together. They watch the cars zoom away on the road, taking turns in estimating the speeds as they drive by.

"What do you think of that one?" Steve nods his head to a Corvette that streaks past them, a blur of navy blue color on the interstate.

Hopper, his empty coffee cup discarded on the hood of his car, scratches his beard semi-thoughtfully. His voice is naturally gruff and coarse, but there's humor in there too as he says "Fifty-five, easy."

"Isn't that over the speed limit?"

Hopper shrugs, finishing his last bite of donut. "Eh. The traffic cameras will nail 'em."

It's that kind of nonchalance that makes Hopper a total enigma in Steve's eyes. How can someone be so dedicated to their job but also so completely indifferent about the people who he's supposed to protect? Honestly, it's equal parts creepy and interesting. He watches the chief stuff the last bite of donut into his mouth and brush the crumbs off his jacket before Steve asks a question he's had on his mind for a while, "How's that girl we saw at the Byers? What's her name? Eleven?"

"Jane?"

"I dunno. Mike and Lucas and Dustin call her El, you call her Jane, Mrs. Byers calls her Eleven. Hey man, all I know is that the girls got super powers. I'm just curious."

Hopper's laugh is similar to that of a creaking door. His chuckle sounds aged and disused, like he hasn't seen a reason to use it before Steve talked to him. "She's good," he's all smiles now, and even Steve can't help but grin at the obvious fondness that Hopper has for the girl, "She's spent the last month hibernating in her room, though."

Steve shoves the last bite of donut into his mouth. "Prolly tired from closin' a gate to 'nuther dimension'r somethin'," he says through a mouthful of chocolate icing and devil's food cake.

Hopper's gaze has always unnerved Steve. It cuts like barbed wire, tangling up in Steve's brain like he knows exactly what the younger teen is thinking. "Yeah, I guess so," is all he says as he watches Steve struggle to swallow his mouthful of donut.

Finally, Steve clears his throat enough to form words again. He pounds on his chest to make sure that the food's gone down, ignoring the chief's odd looks that he's side-eying his way. "So, um, about Ele—err, Jane. She psychic or something?"

There's a prolonged lull in the conversation. "What makes you say that?" Hopper inquires dryly, and Steve's not entirely sure if he's being sarcastic or not.

Steve snorts, the corner of his mouth curling upwards as he watches a Toyota crawl forward through the early December fog, headlights far too bright for how misty it was out. "I mean, if you want me to believe that she chucked that Demo-Dog through the Byers' window by herself, then by all means. Believe me, I know—that thing is _heavy_." He falters at the look that Hopper gives him, which is so grave one would've thought they were talking about the capabilities of a nuclear warhead instead of an adolescent child. Steve throws up his hands in defeat. "Look, I just hate being kept out of the loop."

He swears he sees Hopper roll his eyes, but he isn't too sure. At least the stern look is gone, and Hopper returns his gaze forward. "Ask the kids about it," he grumbles.

"You mean Mike, Lucas, and Dustin?"

Hopper nods. "I swear," he starts, sounding torn between being cross and being entertained by some persistent thought. "Mike comes to the office every other day, asking me to let him see Jane. And when _he_ can't come, _she_ starts bugging me about it. I won't lie; it's starting to wear on me."

"If you ever need a babysitter, call me," Steve offers automatically.

The chief looks him up and down. "Babysitting?" is all he says, puzzled.

Steve shrugs. "I mean. I already watch those five dipshits on a regular basis. What's one more?"

"Jane's not comfortable around strangers."

"Well, it's a good thing that I'm not a stranger then. I watch the kids. I dated Nancy. I've beaten up, let's see…Billy, Jonathan, and a Demogorgon," Steve lists each event on his fingers. "I'd say I'm practically family at this point."

Hopper doesn't laugh, but he does sniff in a manner that Steve thinks means he's more amused than he's showing. Satisfied, Steve lets the conversation end and is more than willing to leave it at that until he hears "Speaking of which, how's that Hargrove business going?"

Steve feels his face fall immediately. "I don't want to talk about it," he says curtly.

It's his best effort to try and signal his desire for the topic to be left unexplored, but Hopper ignores it anyway. "I've tried telling that to the stream of thirty or so letters I get every day from people that want you behind bars. Isn't doing me much good."

"They're all morons," Steve shoots back, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice.

Hopper hums in agreement. Steve briefly wonders if he's going to finally drop the topic, but he should've learned not to fall into that false sense of comfort anymore.

"Can I share a story with you?" Hopper asks.

Unwilling to speak but also knowing better than to tell him no, Steve settles for an indifferent shrug.

Hopper leans heavily against the hood. "You know, when I was sixteen, there was some kid that kept calling me a faggot," he starts, eyes distant. "Can't even remember the guy's name anymore. Now, I had a girlfriend at the time, so the guy was just trying to do it to rile me up. But he kept calling me that. It was 'faggot' this, and 'faggot' that. And eventually, every kid in school was calling me that because the dick wouldn't shut up about it." He laughs. "I played hockey when I was in high school. Some of the parents didn't want me on the team because they thought I'd try and seduce the other guys on my line."

Steve just listens, taking in the story. If Hopper's anticipating a reaction, he quickly catches that he's not going to get one and continues. "But eventually, it got really tiring. I obviously wasn't gay, but it didn't matter that I had a girlfriend or a sex drive or anything else like that. And that kid just kept insisting that he was right and I was just hiding it. By the time the season was over, I was so done with the kid that I wanted to explode."

"So what did you do?" Steve asks.

Hopper smirks. "Well, during gym, I walked over to the dude and clocked him so hard he had to get his jaw wired."

"No. You didn't."

"Oh yeah I did. Got three weeks' worth of detention for it, but no one at school ever called me a fag again. That asshole refused to get within ten feet from me until we got our diplomas, but hey, that was just fine by me."

"So what you're saying," Steve supplies helpfully, "is that I should sock Billy Hargrove in front of other guys at school?"

He's greeted with a bit of a lengthier pause then he would've wanted. The look Hopper gives him isn't encouraging. "What I'm _trying_ to say is that everyone can ignore something for so long, but after a while," he trails off, drumming his fingers on the hood of the car, "you have to decide that enough is enough and confront a problem head on."

Steve stares at his shoes, so Hopper continues in the absence of a response. "Look, Harrington, you're a tough kid. I get that. But it sounds like this guy is making your life miserable, so do something about it."

When Steve doesn't answer, Hopper doesn't press him. The weight on the front of the truck shifts as the police chief settles more of his body against it and sighs, his breath fogging and drifting into the gray clouds above. Hopper digs around in the breast pocket of his jacket and produces a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Steve watches wordlessly as Hopper pulls a cigarette out, jams it between his teeth, and lights it. Now, it's dark gray smoke that billows upwards from his mouth as Hopper takes a deep breath and exhales, his cigarette dangling from the corner of his lips. He catches sight of Steve staring and holds out the package, where he slid the BIC lighter into the half-empty carton, "You want one?"

Somewhat taken aback, it takes several seconds for Steve to realize exactly what is happening and he shakes his head vigorously. Then, sheepishly, he adds "I don't smoke, sir."

Hopper retracts the box wordlessly, nodding. "Good on ya, kid," is all he says. He takes another long drag of the cigarette, the tip of the thing glowing red briefly. It flickers in, then out, blinking back and forth between that state several times, an uneven heartbeat. There's more silence, but neither of them feel compelled to say anything else. Steve bows his head, the smell of tobacco pricking his nostrils as Hopper breezes through one cigarette and then another. He's down four by the time that they pick up their car game again. Finally, when they spot a Mustang doing sixty-five in a thirty-five, Hopper must bid Steve goodbye and declare that he actually needs to do his job. He wears a look of complete disdain as he climbs into the sheriff's car, turns on the sirens, and rumbles down the road. Steve waits for a minute or two, rolling cigarette butts under his sneakers and contemplating waiting for Hopper to get back before the cold starts to worm its way under his blazer and he decides that he better get home before someone sees him loitering around out here and gets the wrong idea.

* * *

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	9. The Ascension

**Trigger warnings for pedophilia mention and uses of the word "f*ggot"**

* * *

Wednesday afternoon, December nineteenth. This has to be some sort of miracle. It's been three days in a row and Steve hasn't had a single insult hurled his direction. A few straggling posters have found their way back to the lockers but it's not nearly as prevalent anymore and their presence doesn't bother him nearly as much. People have stopped tossing newspapers and spitballs at the back of his head and there's far less animosity in the air now compared to the atmosphere only a month ago. Steve's still acutely aware of it, but doesn't dare mention any of it aloud to the people that have started talking to him again, fearful that it's all a sweet dream that he's going to wake from the moment he becomes self-aware. Then again, that list of people that'll talk to him doesn't exactly fill a novel. It boils down to his teachers (who are contractually obliged to talk to him anyway if he wants to keep up his participation grade; half of them still give him unrequited death glares whenever he raises his hand), some of the students who seemed to have put the incident behind them, and Jonathan and Nancy.

It's like walking on a piece of glass. Sure, it's stable for the moment, but Steve doesn't _dare_ put any more pressure on it than what he's got going right now.

It's a total solidarity pact between the three of them. Nancy keeps him company at school, sacrificing her social life during the lunch period to eat with him. Jonathan keeps him company when he's babysitting Will and the other kids, pretty much saddling himself to the role of being Steve's only male companion his age. Perhaps it's created a sense of normalcy, though Steve's not entirely sure if there's really a correlation between the two. Besides, it's not a return to his former glory: not even close. Sure, people talk to him, but there's no reverence or splendor in the conversation. It's all fine to him though, because after several weeks of being the most hated man in Hawkins, Steve's more than happy to just get people to hold a discussion with him without looking like they'd rather be anywhere else.

Of course, there's still the poisonous presence that is Billy Hargrove that seeps through the hallways. Half the school's still convinced that Steve's a dirty pedophile and that's probably all thanks to Billy's unyielding desire to take revenge for his stepsister's actions. Whenever Steve catches sight of him these days, he's feeding the crowd around him false information about Steve, Max, Nancy, and whoever else he can remember the names of.

That's basically what's happening on that Wednesday afternoon. The final bell having rung several minutes ago, Steve makes his way across the parking lot, fighting against the cold weather that seems to have taken a turn for the bitter. There's several textbooks in his backpack, and Steve's struggling to handle both his unzipped jacket and his bag that feels like it's weighed down with stones.

Billy's parked closer to Steve's BMW than normal, which immediately sets off some alarms. He's got a small crowd with him, his inner circle of douches and pricks that enjoy chain-smoking in the parking lot after school. His jean jacket is loosely shrugged over his shoulders, but Steve can see that the kid's shaking like a leaf; serves that Californian dick for dressing lightly in an early Indiana winter. He's grinning at something one of the girls said, his arm around another girl on his opposite side.

Usually, Steve makes extra sure to park on the other side of the parking lot, so he isn't sure if he's gotten lazy or if Billy has decided to park closer to him on purpose. Either way, nothing good can come from it.

The latter option is confirmed as soon as Billy raises his head, a malevolent grin plastered on his face. "Well, would you look who it is!" he announces to his posse, causing heads to swivel, "It's King Steve!"

Biting back a number of retorts, Steve clenches his jaw and soldiers on.

"Where you going, Stevie?!" Billy calls after him. Steve hears some stray laughter accompany the nickname. "You off to find some other kid's sister to molest?"

Steve continues onward, not even chancing a look back.

"Hey, are you off to see those losers in the middle school now? You swinging the other way, faggot?"

He's nearing his car. Billy's voice is losing ground, distant like an echo.

"Or are you meeting up with your slut?!" Billy shouts. "Going right back to Nancy, aren't ya?! Going to nail some losers together?!"

That makes Steve halt.

Damnit, he was so close, too. Another five yards and he'd be inside his car, safe from his own impulses. But Billy's last comment causes his legs to start moving. The sensible side of Steve's brain is screaming at him to stop doing whatever he's about to do, but it's like the rest of his mind is on autopilot. Steve slides his backpack from off his shoulders, drops it onto the asphalt, and pivots on heel. Even from a distance, he can feel Billy's triumph emanating off that stupid haircut of his.

Slowly, Steve marches back over to Billy. Billy waves his group over and they start walking too, until the two of them meet right in the middle. The group of seven or so upperclassmen form a loose semicircle around the boys, looking incredibly interested.

Billy grins widely. "So, now you come crawling back to me, eh?" his voice oozes a quiet pride that make's Steve's skin crawl in anger. "What, you don't like me insulting your whore of an ex-girlfriend?"

Steve makes sure to take a deep breath before responding. "Listen, fuckstick. You can spew shit about me all you want, but Nancy's got nothing to with it. Got it?"

A strong part of him doesn't know why he's bothering. Billy laughs like he's just been told a funny joke. "Look, Harrington. I don't know how you got Nancy suckered over to your side, but she's got _everything_ to do with it. What, she dumps you and you start going for middle schoolers? You don't see the correlation? Pathetic. You do know that, right? How utterly pathetic you are?"

Considering all the shit he's head about himself these past few weeks, "pathetic" is practically a compliment in Steve's eyes. He scoffs through his growing rage. "Whatever, man. What's more pathetic? Me, or you spreading bullshit about me for…what, forty-five days now? Can you even count that high, Hargrove?"

Billy's face loses a bit of its color. Some of the kids around them glance uneasily at each other, no one meeting their eyes.

Steve turns around, and is about to head back for his stuff when Billy recovers. "You and Nancy the Slut going for those kids? Huh?"

Steve pauses.

"What, you taking turns now?" Billy's voice is higher-pitched than normal, clawing for ammunition. "Or do you all do it at once? Huh? My sister not enough for you?"

Oh, God, his hands are curling up.

"Is that what you do with those kids? Is that what you were doing in November? What, was it not just Max, Stevie? You got a whole list of brats that you're fucking on the side?"

 _Everyone can ignore something for so long, but after a while you have to decide that enough is enough and confront a problem head on._

God, Hopper and Nancy are going to kill him.

Steve turns as Billy opens his mouth one more time and punches him square in his face.

The group of kids surrounding them scream and gasp, recoiling backwards. Billy staggers back, groaning, his hand over his left eye. Steve cracks his knuckles, then takes off his jacket and slams it on the ground. His tormentor removes his hand from his eye and stares at him, undisguised fury erupting on his features. Billy's face twists up; with his crooked nose and the bruise blossoming under his left eye, he looks remarkably like a bloated pumpkin, "You're fucking _dead_ , Harrington."

You see, that's the thing about Billy Hargrove. The kid is strong (Steve's face was bruised up for a week after their "encounter", and even though he refused to hide his injuries, he wouldn't lie—it still hurt like a bitch), but he lacks speed. Steve sees the right hook coming a mile away, and he sidesteps easily. Billy turns on heel, rage making his eyes burn, and swings again. Again, Steve dodges.

This goes on for some time. Billy's drawing his strength from the wrath that comes from getting decked in front of his supporters, but Steve's so overcome with a month and a half's worth of raw fury that it's virtually an unfair matchup. He hardly even cares if any of Billy's hits land.

Steve's first hit must've discombobulated Billy—thrown off his game just enough that his anger is overcoming his common sense. Billy's next punch sails right through the air where Steve had been a moment before, and he stumbles off balance. Quick as a flash, Steve's leg connects with his stomach and he doubles over, wheezing in pain. As Billy tries to turn his head and regain his fighting stance, Steve's fist connects with his jaw. Thus, Billy Hargrove unceremoniously topples over onto his back, a trickle of blood dripping from a split lip. Steve dives on top of him, his fist raised above his head.

"Tell them," Steve bellows to Billy. "I want to hear you tell everyone here! I want to hear you tell them that all of this was just a bullshit rumor to cover up that you got your ass beat by a thirteen-year-old!"

Amidst the murmurs of the growing crowd around them, Billy smirks. "Fuck you, Harrington."

Steve brings down his fist. Billy's head snaps to the side, blood spurting from his mouth.

"Say it, fucker," Steve snarls. "What're you so afraid of!?"

Billy's eyes are full of pure hate. When he speaks, blood bubbles at his lips. "Alright. I made it up," he growls. "I made the whole thing up. You happy, Harrington?"

Another punch. Billy's left eye has swollen up already, turning a pale shade of purple, so Steve makes sure to land a hit to his other socket instead.

Steve grabs Billy by his collar. "Not to me," he hisses. "To everyone here. I want everyone to know how much of a liar you are. I want _everyone_ to know that all of this was brought on your own-fucking-self."

Silence follows the demand. To Steve's shock, there's a subtle but wild, untraceable look of fear in Billy's silted eyes. Billy's gaze darts between the crowd behind them, and then to Steve's knuckles. He raises his voice, his tone defeated, reluctant, and malicious all at once. "I made it up," he mutters loudly. "I made it all up. All of it. Every last piece of it."

Voices rise. Feet shuffle. Girls are gasping. Steve lets go of Billy's collar, and he raises his fist again. _No plate to save you now_ , Steve thinks savagely.

His next hit connects, as does the next one. And the one after that. And the one after that. Steve's knuckles are cut open and red. Another hit connects. Billy's nose is bleeding. Another hit connects. Someone behind him is screaming. Another hit connects. There's the sound of footsteps approaching but they sound so far away. Another hit connects. Steve thinks he hears Nancy. Another hit connects. Billy moans feebly, as if he's asking Steve to stop but can't make out the words. Another hit connects. There are shouts that someone needs to call the cops. Another hit connects. Another hit connects. Another hit conn—.

And then Steve's swept off his feet, seized from under the elbows. He's shouting for them to let him go but they don't listen. Billy raises his head weakly, eagle-spread on the pavement, bleeding from just about every part of his face. People are shouting. Steve's knuckles are stinging. There's a definite stench of blood in the air, and for a brief moment Steve's back to fighting Demogorgons and shoving Dustin Henderson behind him and wielding his bat in the face of demonic dogs and telling Nancy Wheeler that he loves her more than anything else in the world.

It's an exorcism. A releasing of the demons.

And Steve Harrington feels his heart beat again in his chest. It tells him that yes, he's still actually here and he's still actually alive. He's survived. He's triumphed.

Steve Harrington ascendant.

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	10. The Lost

**Hey y'all. Sorry for the slow update. Going through finals week right now, and then my birthday's on Sunday, so it's going to be a slow update schedule, especially considering that the next few chapters after this one aren't completely finished yet. Sorry for the delay!**

 **Thanks for the reviews, follows, and favs!**

* * *

In the end, the police come.

It's the last thing that Steve wants, but it wasn't as if he had much choice in the matter. Hopper, who must've been a hawk in a past life from the way he patrols the town, swoops in during the aftermath on orders to drag both him and Billy to the police station. Billy is the one who earns the privilege of riding with the chief of police; "If Harrington gets in this car with me, there ain't going to be nothing in the world that'll stop me from ripping him to fucking shreds," Billy snarls, his black eye now turning a sickly shade of green that reminds Steve of a rotten apple.

"Mhm. I'm going to assume that you've forgotten who you were talking to for a moment," Hopper says icily. "Now get in the goddamn car."

However, his grip on Billy's forearm does noticeably tighten after the remark. Billy Hargrove, stubborn to the end, grunts at the added pressure but doesn't grace Hopper with a reaction.

There's a huge crowd now: mostly high schoolers with some middle schoolers and even a teacher or two. No one dares to come within five feet of Steve, Hopper, and Billy. It all melts into oblivion, anyway. Steve stands there in the center of the circle, panting. Billy's blood dots his jeans like the first raindrops of a summer thunderstorm. His fist is under his nose and his bleeding hand is pressed to his lips. He finds himself trying to catch his breath, though he isn't sure why he is winded. Each scab on his knuckles smells like asphalt and cheap collogue. Tastes like salt and iron. Burns like fire.

There is a deep, resonating fury that still lingers in the heat of his hands, and it makes Steve long to indulge Billy by hopping in the back seat so he could start pounding the living shit out of him all over again. All it takes is one look from Hopper to make him freeze. Far from the laidback, if not worn-out dude that offered him cigarettes and life advice, the guy's expression is downright murderous. There's disappointment there too. Steve isn't sure which makes him more uneasy.

Hopper nods to someone in the crowd. "Take Harrington to the station, now," he growls, opening the door for Billy and shoving him into the backseat. The doors slam, the engine rumbles, and the van roars back to life and peels out of the parking lot. The thunder of the engine and the scratching of the tires echoes in Steve's head long after the car has vanished from view.

Steve's still so far gone, woozy and drunk on his own victory that he allows his mystery escort to grab him by the shoulders and lead him away. The walk across the parking lot takes no time at all, it seems. He's coaxed into the shotgun seat and the door shuts next to him. Under his feet, the engine rumbles. And then they're off, heading downtown.

Steve doesn't say anything until a pair of fingers snaps under his nose and he's literally snapped out of his trance. "Earth to Steve Harrington," a tired voice that he recognizes all too well yells at him.

Steve turns to Jonathan, blinking slowly. "What…Jesus Christ. Damn." He pinches the bridge of his nose with his fingers.

"You okay?" Jonathan sounds more concerned over his safety than Steve every thought he could be. There was a time where Jonathan Byers wanted him dead, after all. He's got the scars and the memories to prove it.

Steve runs his other hand through his hair. "Yeah, yeah, I'm good. I think." He leans back. "God, my parents are going to kill me."

Jonathan, opposing the rattled look he wears, shrugs nonchalantly. "I mean, it sure looks like you got provoked," he offers. "You should ride that as your defense."

"My only defense is that I was doing exactly what Hopper told me to do," Steve half-jokes, massaging his aching knuckles.

"Hopper did _not_ ask you to beat the snot out of Billy," Jonathan reminds him, "That, I'm sure of."

"Hey, he told me to stand up for myself. He's sharing a chunk of the blame here, as far as I'm concerned."

Jonathan snickers, but there's no strength behind it. A silence that's both uneasy and comfortable falls across the two, just like old times. The trees roll on past, and for just a moment, the stinging in Steve's hand ceases and his mind stops whirling around at a hundred miles an hour and he just…stays still. The only thing he focuses on is his breathing. How steady it comes in and out. Each breath he takes, and each one that slips past his lips, leaving them cold, barren.

"I'm sorry," Steve blurts out before he can stop himself. His hands knead themselves through his hair, the bottom of his palms digging into his eyebrows.

Jonathan Byers stares at him like he's grown a second head. "What for?" he finally manages, looking positively baffled.

"Just…" Steve loses track of his words briefly, and then they all tumble out of his mouth. Every last regret, because damn, he sure has a lot of them, apparently, "…for everything! For getting you wrapped up in all this. For spray-painting all that shit on the movie theater. For thinking you were cheating on Nancy. Oh, and for breaking your camera—did I ever apologize for breaking your camera? Oh fuck, man, I'm so sorry about that. I don't know what the fuck I was thinking. Oh, Jesus, oh _fuck_."

Jonathan stays quiet as Steve pours out all his remorse on the floor of his car as if he's in a confessional. His expression transcends bafflement and goes straight into mild panic. "Steve, breathe," he says slowly, reaching out with one hand. "Breathe, man."

Steve's so disoriented that it's all he can do to listen to the other teen. He inhales through his nose.

"Now out."

He lets the air cascade from his mouth. It meets his lips, and the icy feeling makes them sting.

"Listen, man," Jonathan's voice is soft on Steve's ears, which is a bit of a welcoming sound. There's no accusation, no pity, no contempt. It's just plain old Jonathan, who still speaks like he's in a room full of sleeping babies. "What on earth are you talking about? My camera? Who cares about my camera?"

"I care about your camera," Steve says stubbornly before he can think better of it.

Jonathan shoots him a dubious expression, so Steve backtracks, "Well, I mean, I care about that stuff _now_ ," he argues, latching his fingers onto his hair. "You know, now that we're, like, friends and shit?"

For a moment, the only sound comes from the wheels of the car on the road and the sound of something—the Ramones, maybe—playing on cassette over Jonathan's speaker. Steve leans back into the worn fabric and finally tells himself to release his hair before he tears it all out. The trees have melted away into the stone and brick of downtown Hawkins.

Jonathan rolls his thumb over the leather of the steering wheel as he pulls to a stop at a red light. "You know," he starts. His voice is clear as water, emotionless in a good way, "my mom's having this, um, sorta dinner party. Will's inviting Dustin and Lucas. Nancy'll be coming with Mike. And we think Max might be stopping by too." He breaks off for a moment. "Dustin's told you about this, right? He invited you?"

Yeah, a week or so ago. Steve nods.

"Well, we still haven't heard if you're coming or not," Jonathan says slowly, "You in?"

Inhale, exhale.

"Duh," Steve says, grinning. "I mean, who's going to watch those kids while you and Nancy are off doing whatever it is you crazy lovebirds do?"

Jonathan's face goes red so fast that he's looking closer to a tomato than a human. Steve immediately wonders if he's crossed a line, panic rising in his chest. He starts stammering over his words, trying to sense what was wrong, trying to sense why something _always_ went wrong. "Look man, I…I-I didn't mean—"

"Steve," Jonathan's voice breaks through Steve's faltering attempt at making amends, cool and calm, just like it always is. "Stop apologizing."

Steve blinks. His mouth is hanging open like a fool. The sound of his friend's voice is like being dunked into cold water.

"You've got nothing to apologize for. You never have."

And just like that, the remainder of his apology dies on his cold, barren lips.

For once in his life, he's at a loss for words. He closes his mouth and faces forward instead. But hey, he's seen stranger things in his lifetime before. Steve's not going to lie, he's surprised that it was Jonathan Byers of all people to finally get him to shut up. What's one more?

The car turns onto Main Street, so they're close to the station by now. Steve continues to stare out the window, wrapped up in breathing steadily, and Jonathan continues driving. "By the way," Jonathan pipes up as they turn their last corner, "can I ask you something?"

"Sure, shoot."

"Who hit harder?" there's the ghost of a smile on Jonathan's face now, "Me or Billy?"

And, for the first time in a series of weeks that have felt like a year, Steve laughs.

"Oh, you," Steve says, shaking his head and relishing the grin that has found its way back to his face. "Definitely you."

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	11. The Judgement

**Hello everyone! Sorry for the delay and hope y'all had a happy holidays!**

 **Thanks for all the reviews, favorites, and follows!**

 **Trigger warning for pedophilia mention.**

* * *

With both Steve and Billy present in the same room, the police station becomes the scene of an uneasy armistice, with an extreme emphasis on uneasy. In fact, uneasy, in Steve's eyes, is the wrong word. The best way to describe it was Steve and Billy shooting daggers at each other as they wait for their parents to arrive and while Hopper prepares to chew them out. But that was far too long an explanation, so "uneasy" was the best word for the situation at hand. Hopper's staff leaves them be, which is absolutely fine by him, because the only thing that Steve doesn't want right now is for something or someone to set either of them off and for Hopper to come out to find his workplace demolished by two teens on a warpath.

The moment Steve enters the station, a pair of handcuffs are slapped on his wrist. He and Jonathan are directed to seats on one side of the office. Jonathan sits there quietly; one could've mistaken him for a wax figurine had he not been swiveling his head between the two of them. Steve is leaning forward, his hands between his knees, pressing his knuckles into an ice pack that's offering no relief to the fire that still scorches through the bones.

Billy and Max sit on the other side of the office. Someone gave Billy a rag to clean his face, so he looks less bloody, but far more furious. Much to Steve's satisfaction, Billy has also received a pair of cuffs. As far as he can guess, Max was sent to the station by the school to accompany her brother. He's sure she did it with much protesting, but she found her way here eventually. The two stepsiblings sit next to each other, both looking as if they'd rather be anywhere else. Max has scooted herself as far away from Billy's body as physically possible until she's practically falling off the chair, sending looks back to Steve and Jonathan that very plainly say that if she sits there for one more minute, then the police crew is going to have another pubescent atom bomb to be watching out for.

She doesn't do anything, however. Maybe it was common sense winning over. Maybe it was Steve fixing her with the hardest stare he could muster up, willing her to behave herself. And Max stays put, her face stony; all she can do is participate in the four-way face off and send unreturned threats to the other with their faces.

In order to avoid locking eyes with Billy and possibly creating a second take on their already-reprised brawl, Steve fixates on the clock that hangs over the door to the main lobby. The seconds tick away into minutes, the minutes tick away into hours. Steve watches the hands go around and around over and over again, hypnotized by the motion.

Mr. Hargrove storms in around four, about forty-five minutes after they all arrived. His barges past Hopper's two stricken-looking deputies, a mad gleam in his eyes and a snarl on his lips. His wife comes right behind him, looking concerned but not nearly as angry. She heads straight to Billy and Max, kneeling down before her two children and talking delicately to them. Hr. Hargrove gives Steve a manic look—Steve wouldn't be surprised if he brought a shotgun and just decided to end his life right here—but doesn't do anything aside from joining Mrs. Mayfield on the other side of the station to confront Billy about the incident.

As Steve watches that curious scene unfold, Jonathan leans in. "How long before your parents get here?" he mutters to Steve under his breath.

"If they get here before nine, I'll consider it divine intervention."

God intervenes on Steve's behalf around five-thirty. The Harringtons arrive together. Steve's dad looks as though he just got off of work, looking more drained and bored than mad in his three-piece suit and "festive" red tie that he liked to throw on for the holidays. At least his mother looks somewhat invested enough to appear cross and upset, but even so, it's more annoyance than a downright state of furiousness. Both his parents head over to him and Jonathan.

"Steven," his father's tone somehow reminds him of Mike's when he whined about something in Dungeons and Dragons, "What did you do?"

Steve feels a prick of shame somewhere in his gut. His eyes dart over to the Mayfield-Hargrove's. "I beat up Billy Hargrove," he states matter-of-factly.

His dad sighs and shakes his head. His mother lets out a tiny little gasp and nothing else. Together, they walk over to the desk of the secretary and start asking questions, their backs to Steve and Jonathan. He can feel his friends' eyes trained on him, unasked and therefore unanswered questions boring into the back of his head. Steve's not entirely sure if he's grateful his parents aren't chewing him out, or disappointed that his parents don't even care enough to bother chewing him out.

He can't dwell on it, however, as Hopper makes an appearance from his office. With two fingers, he beckons the Harrington's and the Mayfield-Hargrove's forward. Steve's joined by his parents, and Billy and his family bring up the rear. From the corner of his eye, Steve can see Max bolt over to Jonathan as soon as she's sure her parents aren't looking anymore.

Hopper shuts the door behind the seven of them and nods at the two empty chairs placed in front of his desk. Steve fills the one on the left, Billy fills the one on the right. He can feel both his parents take their places behind him, his father and mother each placing a hand on his shoulders.

No sooner than when the door is closed and Hopper is settled into his chair do the questions start flying.

"Why is my son in handcuffs?"

"Chief Hopper, what is the meaning of this?"

"What did Steven do?"

"Why isn't that disgrace of a human put behind bars yet?"

Hopper cuts off the flow of demands with a raise of the hand, and there's silence once more. While he leans back and props his boots up on the desk, it appears that Mr. Hargrove has had enough of being forced to keep his thoughts to himself. "Chief Hopper, with all due respect, why is Steve Harrington not in a holding cell!?"

With an expression so unconcerned that Steve's only thought is that Hopper's taken an Ambien before having this meeting, he lolls his head towards his furious patron. "Because he wasn't taken in a police car," he says sardonically, "the eldest Byers boy drove him over here."

"Well, are you going to get any help in here before he attacks my boy again!?" Mr. Hargrove sputters, clearly affronted.

There's a bit of pressure on his shoulder. "Steven would never do that," his father interjects, still sounding as if he'd rather be in his recliner with a beer in hand. Steve feels his hands itch with a spreading anger that oddly doesn't feel like his own.

"Actually, Greg, I have the phone ringing off the wire about a fight at Hawkins High with William Hargrove and your boy," Hopper informs him. "I've gotten thirty people calling my secretary in the last hour alone. As you can imagine, Flo's very stressed about it. But before I do anything, I'm going to need testimonies from both boys, and I'm going to need them both to be as honest as possible with me so we can make this…" he fixes each of them with a callous stare and his final word is forced out through his gritted teeth, seemingly, on sheer anger alone, "…painless."

And so, the next twenty minutes are spent recounting the details of the fight. The hands on Steve's shoulders go through varying stages of pressure as Steve describes every last detail he remembers of heading through the parking lot, Billy's taunting of him, and his eventual beatdown. Billy's accounts are mostly true to the story; Steve is sure that Hopper's claim to have thirty eyewitnesses has scared him from bending the truth too much. He does, rather conveniently, leave out the part about him calling Steve a faggot and implying that he and Nancy were engaging in pedophilia, but Steve knows far better than to interrupt.

When it was all accounted for, Hopper's expression changes very little. He exhales through his nose. "So, what I'm seeing here is that William provoked Steve into attacking him," Hopper summarizes. Billy shifts noticeably in his seat. "And Steve initiated the conflict by hitting William first."

"This wasn't some petty fistfight, Chief Hopper," Mr. Hargrove interjects again, "That Harrington boy just assaulted my son!"

"I never said it was, Neil."

"Neil, boys will be boys. Is it not that big of a deal?"

"Not that big of a deal? My son looks like he just got back from 'Nam, and this isn't a big deal to you!? Frankly, you should be ashamed of that lying, irresponsible boy you've got right there."

As voices rise and tensions flare, it takes another minute or so for Hopper to wrangle control over the room again. Mr. Hargrove looks set to start spitting fire all over Hopper's desk. Steve's mother's lips are pursed together, and his father's face has settled somewhere about halfway between disappointment and indifference as if the two emotions were battling for dominance.

"Well, let me just say this, then," Hopper pulls out a file and slides across the table to Mr. Hargrove. "The way I see this, yes, Steve did assault your son, and that's a case right there. But I'd like to bring to your attention that your son has been spending the last month and a half spreading a completely false story about Steve here that's not only harmed his reputation, but is in direct correlation to the reason that Steve attacked William. Now my problem, Mr. Hargrove, is that if you intend to press charges on Steve, then just remember that the Harrington's have enough proof of William committing defamation of character, slander, and libel to bury you under enough legal litigation that it would probably turn your home into a ski resort. And yes, because I know you're wondering; William's eighteen, so he will be tried as an adult."

It's astonishing how quickly Mr. Hargrove's face swells up like a big red balloon. When he addresses Hopper, spittle flies from his lips. "Are you threatening me? You have no proof that my son made up these rumors!"

"Actually, I do," Hopper says icily. "I have about ten of those eyewitnesses confirming to Billy admitting the entire thing was a farce, and it's been going on long enough. So, unless you want to take this thing to court, Mr. Hargrove," Hopper's words were all for Billy now, "then I suggest that you fess up to my deputies and we can put this entire thing behind us."

Billy and Mr. Hargrove look positively dumbfounded. While they stand there, Mrs. Mayfield takes the file and opens it. Her face goes through a multitude of emotions very, very quickly, and her voice is nearly nonexistent when she says "Billy, is this true?"

Steve doesn't think he's ever seen Billy look this flustered. His eyes shift back and forth from his father to his stepmother to Hopper, but he doesn't utter a sound.

"Is this true, Billy?" Mr. Hargrove grimly repeats the question.

Billy opens his mouth, then closes it again. Mr. Hargrove looks like he isn't sure who he wants to murder first—Steve, his son, or Hopper, who casually motions for Steve to bring himself closer. Obediently, he holds out his hands and Hopper unlocks the cuffs around his wrists. They fall on the desk unceremoniously, and Steve rubs the welts they left on his arms.

"You're free to go," Hopper addresses all the Harrington's at once. "Mrs. Mayfield, Mr. Hargrove, I'd like to speak to you and your son a little bit longer, if you don't mind."

And just like that, it's over. It's like the ending to a movie. As Steve rises from his chair, his mother's hand on his back, he sees that Billy's glaring at him with undisguised hatred. Mr. Hargrove isn't that much better, wearing an expression so full of venom that Steve feels feebler just for stealing a glance at it. But his father shuts the door behind them, and Steve thinks of them no longer.

Out in the waiting room, his parents announce that they're going to go home, and they expect him to be back before ten. His father mutters something about wanting to watch the Pacers game, and his mother asks him about how he feels about pork roast for dinner. Steve watches them go, feeling…hollow. This should feel triumphant. This should feel vindicating. But all he feels is a deep sense of mourning, as if he's watching his parents' funerals or as if he's seeing them for the last time.

In a sense, maybe he is. Or maybe he's seeing them for the first time, and he's just never noticed it.

But the feeling doesn't last long as he turns around and is greeted by a different kind of family.

To Steve's shock and delight, several newcomers are waiting for him as he leaves Hopper's office. One person he genuinely hadn't expected to see is Mrs. Byers, hugging her leather jacket tightly against her body in some sort of nervous impulse. She's planted firmly in Steve's former seat and is chatting away rapidly with Jonathan. Nancy's there as well, leaning against the wall on her boyfriend's opposite side. Will, Dustin, Lucas, Max, and Mike linger around the three of them, bombarding the adults with questions that they likely aren't going to get answers to.

It's Dustin, of course, who spots him first. Hearing him shout a loud and distracting "Steve!", Steve suddenly finds himself being bull-rushed by five middle-schoolers who tackle him around the middle and nearly topple him like a redwood. Dustin and Lucas are firmly locked around his waist, and Will's managed to weasel his way in there too. Mike and Max are a touch more standoffish—Steve's always assumed that Mike's just not that touchy-feely, and Max probably doesn't want to show that much affection to him in case her parents return—so Steve has to reach over three decently-sized kids in order to acknowledge them. Mrs. Byers, Jonathan, and Nancy soon follow. Jonathan claps him on the shoulder, smiling broader than Steve thinks his ever seen him smile. Mrs. Byer's grin is even wider, threatening to swallow the entire lower half of her face. Nancy just looks relieved to see that Steve's not coming out with a cop on either side, and there's a sense of finality in her voice when she asks "Is it over?"

Steve grins. "Yeah," he says, ruffling Will's hair, "I think it's over."

"You aren't going to jail?" Lucas asks excitedly, as if the prospect of Steve going to prison was going to make a far better story than that of him being let off the hook.

"Why, do you want me to go to jail?"

Lucas, Max, Will, and Mike all shout "No!" at the same time. Only Dustin laughs at the joke, so Lucas elbows him and shouts at him for being insensitive, which causes Mike to jump to Dustin's defense, and Max to Lucas's, and before Steve knows it, the full-on brawl he was dreading is about to take place between four rowdy fucking kids.

Fortunately, Mrs. Byers defuses the situation so he doesn't have to. "Kids, kids! Stop!" with Nancy and Will's help, she pushes Mike and Dustin off Lucas, "Can we not fight in the police station?"

And just like that, Mrs. Byers fishes four apologies out of the kids. Steve's genuinely impressed at her for sparing him from Hopper's wrath, and much more relieved than he'd ever admit to. Mrs. Byers claps her hands together, then holds her arms out. She motions forward, "C'mon, Steve," Mrs. Byers says gently, gentler than he's ever heard her before.

Hesitantly, Steve steps forward. Before he knows what's happening, he's swept in for a hug by a woman he barely knows, for a reason she barely has asked about. Mrs. Byers is basically a foot shorter than Steve, so she's reaching up to hug his shoulders and back like she needs to cling to a ladder rung. Her embrace is warm, and comforting. Steve slowly reaches his hands up and grips the back of her jacket.

And suddenly, he feels like sobbing.

The corners of his eyes burn hot, and he can feel the wetness start to soak the space under his eyelids. He breathes in deeply, tasting the sterile air of the police station and breathing in the calming scent of the aged leather of Mrs. Byer's jacket. It's right there when he just about loses it, because goddamn, it's just all so _much_. Everything is just so foreign to Steve at the moment that it's all he can do to hold onto Mrs. Byers as if she's his actual mother and just bawl into her shoulder like he's seven years old again.

"It's okay, Steve," Mrs. Byers soothes. The tips of her fingers brush through Steve's hair, and the feeling resonates with him, as if she's been doing it his entire life. "It's okay, let it all out. No one's judging."

He doesn't let it out. Maybe he'll take a good shower and release his emotions to their fullest extent where there's running water that can drown out his sobbing. But Steve does allow a tear or two to fall before he backs out of the hug. He tries to discreetly rub his eyes but he knows that it's not fooling anyone at all. Mrs. Byer's smile is warm and inviting as she backs away, beaming with pride. Nancy moves in to embrace him now and Jonathan gives them enough space to make it feel personal. To Steve's disbelief, none of the kids are laughing, but Lucas doesn't resist the opportunity to take a jab. "Are you _crying_ , Steve?"

"No," Steve scoffs, a hand still dabbing at his wet eyes, "I don't cry."

"Oh my God, Steve's crying," Steve hasn't seen Max smile this broadly since…well, ever.

"I'm not crying, Mayfield," Steve snaps, though not mean-spiritedly, "Harrington's don't cry. And don't you ever forget that."

They all have a good laugh at the joke, even Steve. When they're all settled down, Mrs. Byers' voice pierces through the silence. "Well Steve, what would you like to do now?"

That catches him off guard. "What would I like to do now?" he echoes, sounding like a complete moron. And then he thinks about it. He's spent the entire last month and a half being harassed, discouraged, and absorbed in his own self-pity. Forty-five days of complete misery and defeatism. Now that he's free…what _did_ he want to do now?

"I wanna eat," he declares. "I'm starving. I want a burger."

Mrs. Byers is the first to react, nodding attentively. She reaches into her pockets, her movements slow, clearly already knowing their contents, "Okay, well, where do you want to go? I think I have enough on me—"

"No," Steve stops her, his words coming out a little more forcefully than he intends, "I want to pay. I'm paying. I've got enough on me."

Eight intense stares hit him at the same time. "Steve…" Jonathan is the first to speak up, but Steve cut across him once more.

"Don't even start with me, Byers," he snaps, pointing an accusing finger at him, "I want to pay. Let's go get some freaking burgers. I'm hungry, and I'm really not in the mood for pork roast. Let me have this one and you can buy me a burrito next week because I'll probably be feeling Mexican by then."

"Steve's right," Nancy steps in, and Steve's more than glad for her intervention, "Let's just put this entire thing behind us and grab food. I'm hungry too. And we should be celebrating! I mean, Steve's not an accused child predator anymore. That's reason enough to go out and grab some food, right?"

"See?" Steve said sarcastically, though not nearly as sarcastically has he should have been, "Nancy's the only one with the gall to take me up on free food?" He placed a hand on his chest, and Dustin snickered as Steve continues. "I'm honestly hurt, guys."

Lucas rolls his eyes, half-grinning. "We get it, Mr. King of Drama."

"That's Steveington the Sovereign, _Sir_ King of Drama to you, Sinclair, and you'd be wise to remember it."

They divvy up the spaces of the two cars available to them. Between Mrs. Byers and Jonathan's cars, they have just enough space for everyone, granted that the kids squeeze tight in the backseat for a little bit. The plan made and the destination set, the group begins to set out. Looking back, Steve sees Max, hugging her arms to her chest, lagging behind the rest. She's looking back towards Hopper's still-closed office door, her face full of apprehension.

"Yo, Max, what's up?" Steve asks her. He hears the rest of the group come to a halt.

Max turns to him, worry alight in her eyes. "It's nothing," she declares, her voice shaky. "I just thought that I should, erm, wait for my parents and Billy to come out."

Steve stares at her. He's only known her for about two months at this point, but he's never seen her get cold feet at _anything_. "You really want to wait for the reason that we were in this mess to begin with?" he implores.

"Well, no," Max isn't meeting his eyes anymore. That's not a good sign. "I just don't want to run off with my parents knowing that I went with you. My stepdad's gonna flip if I stay out too late, and I, you know," she shrugs in a helpless manner, "I don't want to get in more trouble."

And suddenly, Steve understands completely. He has seen Max get cold feet. It was at her house, when her dad was home and she knew that a confrontation was imminent. He'd seen her face down Demodogs, The Mind Flayer, her own stepbrother. But the idea of going back home to her stepdad terrified her…and yeah, Steve wouldn't lie by saying he had no idea why. But that doesn't mean he's going to stand by and let that asshole win.

"Screw that," he says. Perhaps not the best thing to say to a thirteen-year-old, because Max furrows her eyebrows, but Steve rolls with it anyway. "What makes you think that you're suddenly uninvited from my freedom feast, Mayfield?"

She reddens. "I didn't…I mean, it's not that," she sputters.

Max goes silent, her eyes cast down on the floor. There's a pregnant pause before she mutters something that Steve can't catch. "What's up, Max?" Lucas sounds from behind Steve.

She looks at all of them for a brief second, then averts her eyes again. "You guys wouldn't want me there," Max laments.

It's Mike that beats Steve to the first response. "Fuck that," he says, indignant ("Language!" Nancy shouts over his shoulder, sounding positively mortified). Steve punches him lightly on the shoulder, intending it as a warning, but Mike solders on. "We want you to come. We're all a party now, aren't we?" There's a general murmur of agreement, including one from Steve after Dustin jabs him somewhere in the ribs, "Well, parties stick together. _We_ stick together."

For the first time since he's known her, Max breaks into a toothy grin. The tension in the air dissipates. "You guys are losers," she says to them, and to Steve's shock she actually sounds rather choked up.

"Yeah," Steve says, grinning like a doofus, "the loser-iest."

At that, Max heads over to the rest of the party. Steve slings an arm over her shoulder, and they walk outside into the cold.

As Steve, Max, Will, Mike, Lucas, Dustin, Nancy, Jonathan, and Mrs. Byers head for the car, it starts snowing.

It's a heavy snowfall. The flakes are thick and wet, full of promises of a day off come the next day. Steve watches them in wonder as they drift from the light gray sky, brushing the treetops with white and dusting the parking lot like powdered sugar. It's definitely cold enough for it to stick, but not windy enough for it to blow. It just falls, still and silent, like a dream that Steve might've had once upon a time. And he stands there, mesmerized by it until Jonathan honks the car impatiently and Steve has to scramble in the back with the kids. They drive off to a diner that Steve recommends in Wellington as the snow blankets the small town of Hawkins, wiping everything clean again.

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 **Thanks for reading and please review, fav, or follow if you enjoyed!**


	12. The End

After Christmas comes and goes, Steve picks up his pen again.


	13. The Beginning

**Hey fam! Long time no see! I've been handling things abroad and I knew that it was time to buckle down and finish this baby. Also, fun fact; this is the first multi-chapter fic I've ever completed. I've honestly kinda proud of myself.**

 **Thanks for the reviews, follows, and favorites and please enjoy the final chapter!**

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Steve hates March. It's bitter and cold and wet and holds absolutely no joy to him. There's a persisting feeling of never having much else to do except wait around for the year to be over. It crawls along, inch by agonizing inch, as if it was dragging its feet solely to piss him off. But it still moves on, an apt metaphor if anything else

The winter whizzed by with little much else that happened. News of Steve's accusations and subsequent innocence died down not long after Hopper stepped in and intervened. Soon, he was back in everyone's good graces, flitting around the halls with the former ease of sophomore and junior year. He just floats on, weightless and free from burden. People started to talk to him again, and most of the adults around Hawkins had stopped glaring at him when he walked down the road. In fact, the fury that fueled every barbed word towards him had melted into a sense of pity that spiked the air whenever Steve found himself in a room with others. He didn't care for it too much—the constant stream of apologizes that never seemed to taper off, the proclamations of regret that were uttered whenever he encountered one of his former accusers. He gathered the gist of the messages within the first week or so. Any more of it is, in his opinion, overkill.

Billy Hargrove hadn't uttered a word to him since the entire debacle came to a close. Steve sees him in school, but not much else. He doesn't even look his way. It's almost sad, in a way, and Steve feels a sort of nostalgia for the way that Billy used to torment him. It's far better than the way he looks now; a hollowed-out husk of a kid who seems more of a ghost than a high schooler. There's a shadow of a pain in his eyes and one or two more bags under them, no doubt a product of their feud. He keeps his gaze forward, never wandering. Steve hasn't heard an ill word against his reputation since December.

And in a weird, twisted sort of way, Steve misses the way that Billy used to talk about him.

Yeah, the kid was a dick. A dick was a bit of an understatement, as a matter of fact. But at least that gave his life purpose. At least that meant he didn't look like a dead man walking, bruises on his shoulders and cigarette burns on his arms (Steve's too polite to stare, but his eyes have strayed during basketball practice. He never utters a word.) Whenever Steve prods Max for information, she pales and either changes the subject or gives a vague answer.

Never in his wildest dreams did Steve think that he'd give more than two shits about the general wellbeing of Billy Hargrove. Alas, here he was. Sometimes, Steve ponders the situation in bed before he falls asleep and wonders why the hell the universe has cursed him with the glorious burden of empathy.

But even though there are concerns, and big ones at that, it's peaceful. Hawkins Lab moved out of the town sometime back before New Year's. Barb was finally "found" and buried; Steve didn't dare look either of her grieving parents in the eye during the funeral. Joyce slowly seemed to recover from her boyfriend's demise. Will was happy and healthy, smiling with his friends when Steve picked them up from school. Even Eleven, or El, or Jane, or whatever-her-name-was, was taking tutoring sessions with Nancy and Jonathan because she was given permission by Hopper to try to get into high school next year.

Things settle down. The world falls back into equilibrium. Life moves on.

Life moves on…

Not for Steve, it doesn't. Or, at least, not yet.

He muses over these things as he leans against the trunk of his car, basking in the artificial lights on Maple Street. His head is cocked, analyzing the familiar sight of the Wheeler's house with an intense sort of scrutiny. It's exactly like he remembers it, not that it's done anything to change, really. It's his nostalgia getting the better of him, he figures. A world where nothing's changed is ideal, but unrealistic, and Steve knows deep down that he wouldn't want it anyway.

The second level is dark. Which makes sense—it's 7:30 and the Wheelers are probably having dinner. He checks his back pockets, shimmies his jacket back onto his shoulders, and starts down the lawn. He doesn't really have a game plan, but he does have two good legs and, for once in his life, an explicit reason to see Nancy.

His first thought is to just do the sensible thing, which is knock on the door. But that wouldn't be any fun. Besides, he doesn't want to interrupt the entire family's night by stealing away their eldest child. Nah, he'll choose his second and personal favorite option: going through Nancy's bedroom window. Boy, it's been a while since he did that.

At this point, as Steve hauls himself up on the generator and then onto the top of the garage, swinging his heel into the gutter, he's just hoping that the neighbors aren't going to call the cops. Following another few minutes of shimmying and grunting, Steve finally gets onto the roof and heads for Nancy's room.

She keeps the window unlocked, fortunately. Probably force of habit, or maybe she leaves it open in case she was expecting something like this to happen. No matter, as Steve easily slides the window open and starts crawling into Nancy's darkened room.

He's about halfway through, struggling to get his hips through the tiny hole, when the lights flicker on and the room is engulfed in fluorescent lighting. Steve's head shoots upwards and he's about to start retreating when he sees who it is.

Nancy's head is turned away from him as she walks in. She's wearing that red sweater. The same one she wore on their first week back from saving the world again. Her hair bounces and sways with the movement, her lips puckered in the middle of her sentence. Before Steve could say anything, her head snaps across the room and both of their eyes lock. Needless to say, Steve has a sinking feeling that seeing him was not the first thing on Nancy's list of expectations for the evening. Can't say he blamed her for that, at least.

"I'll be right back do- _ohmyfucki-_ " that's about as far as she gets before Nancy clamps her hand over her mouth. Steve, still halfway through the window, grins sheepishly and waves.

"Nancy?" Mrs. Wheeler's voice echoes from down the stairs, "what's going on up there?"

For a few agonizing seconds, Nancy doesn't respond. Steve wonders for a moment if she's considering blurting out the truth to her parents before she bellows "It's a spider!" and slams her bedroom door.

God, Steve loves Nancy Wheeler.

With a very severe expression on her face, Nancy stomps over to Steve and seizes his wrists. Not very gently, she heaves and tugs on his body and finally succeeds in hauling his ass through her bedroom window. Steve comes in like a felled tree, toppling over himself, his ankles still caught in her window frame.

"Steve!?" Nancy has to refrain from sounding exasperated, he can tell, "what are you doing here!? It's spring break! Shouldn't you be on vacation? Or with your parents or something?"

Steve mentally checks his face to make sure he's not grimacing as he finally squeezes the rest of himself through Nancy's window. "My parents have been out of town for the past week. Business trip for my dad, ladies' getaway for my mom. Ones in Venice, the other's in Dallas. I figure they're having a good time, because they haven't shot me a call in a while."

He wonders how much bitterness is leaking out of his voice. He's usually good at hiding it from most people, but Nancy's not most people. And sure enough, Nancy does look a touch awkward as she fumbles over her next few words, "St-Steve, I, I didn't mean— "

"It's fine, Nancy," he says coolly, standing up and brushing himself off, "It's honestly fine. I don't really care. I hope they're having fun."

Wow, Steve is honestly impressed with himself; he doesn't think he's ever spoken a full sentence where literally every word that came out of his mouth was a complete and utter lie.

They dated, for Christ's sake. If anyone knew the insides and outsides of Steve's mannerisms, it was Nancy Wheeler. He knows it; Nancy clearly knows it, judging by the way her face goes rosy. Suddenly feeling ashamed of himself, Steve jumps back into the conversation before she can apologize again, "Look Nancy, I didn't come to vent or make you feel bad for me. I actually really need to talk to you."

Nancy purses her lips. "Could you have picked a worse time?"

Steve shrugs. Nancy curses under her breath.

"Honey?!" that's her father calling now, his voice monotone despite an attempt at humor, "Are you hibernating up there!?"

Nancy hollers "Coming!" down to them before facing Steve. "If I ask you to leave," she begins curtly, "would you do it?"

Snorting, Steve rolls his eyes in an amused manner. "Do you even know me at all?"

Rolling her eyes and groaning, Nancy turns around, stomps out the bedroom door, and slams it shut, leaving Steve alone with his thoughts.

The minutes tick by in silence. The only sound is the muffled conversations of the Wheelers finishing their meal. Steve allows himself to wonder through Nancy's room—never touching, only observing. There's practically no difference between the last time he was here and tonight. There's still the pink wallpaper and the smoothed sheets that get made up every morning. Steve stops around Nancy's dresser, taking in the plethora of jewelry scattered across the top. His eyes drift upward. There's several photos stuck into the mirror. There are a few of Nancy and Mike when they were younger, back before hormones were a thing and they didn't get on each other's nerves like normal siblings. There are a couple of him and Nancy in there as well. One of him and her at the last football game of the previous year. Another when he and her went bowling for their tenth date. Yet another when he and Nancy went with Jonathan to the beach last summer. Moments frozen in time. Hard to believe they were so far away from where they were now.

On the nightstand, covered with necklaces, is the only framed photo in the room. It's of Nancy, and just of her. Her hair is cut short, which means that it was taken recently. And it's a decent photo too, no doubt Jonathan's handiwork. Nancy's overlooking a road, sitting on the hood of Jonathan's beat up sedan. Her back is to the camera and the wind helps to hide her face by blowing her hair forward. It's a great photo. Mysterious. Like a renaissance painting.

Steve's snapped out of his thoughts as the door opens and shuts again. He turns to see his ex-girlfriend in the flesh, looking halfway torn between exasperation and confusion. It's certainly the former than leaks into her voice as she starts speaking, "You better have a really good reason to break into my house."

"Is it really breaking in?" Steve deflects with a grin. "I mean, this was your preferred mode of entry for me exactly a year ago."

Nancy opens her mouth then closes it again, settling for a sigh instead. "Steve, what are you doing here?" she asks.

"I really needed to see you."

"Like this?" Nancy shakes her head, eyes wide in disbelief, "When my parents can call the police on you for sneaking into my room? C'mon, Steve. We literally just got all this settled.

"Nance."

"Steve, please, don't call me-"

"I got in."

Nancy stops, her mouth halfway open, her expression morphing right before his eyes. "You got in?" she repeats, her face now so serious that Steve would be inclined to laugh under different circumstances.

From his back pocket, Steve produces a piece of paper and hands it to her. "I got it last week," he tells her, his voice soft with unknown longing. "Indiana University, class of 1989."

Nancy snatches the letter from his hand and scans it, her eyes wide. She turns back to him, "Steve, I- "

"And I got this one from Purdue three days ago," Steve offers her another letter. "And I got this one from DePaul this morning," he whips out a third letter, passing it into her hands.

Even though Nancy's mouth is hanging open, she isn't making a sound. She holds all three of Steve's acceptance letters at the same time, looking them up and down as if she couldn't believe what she's seeing. When she finally finds her voice again, it cracks. "You're going to college," she whispers.

The sound of her voice, so full of pride and anguish and fear and joy, is nearly enough to drive Steve right over the edge of his own sanity. "Yeah," he manages to choke out, "I'm going to college, Nance."

They stand there for a few, sweet moments. Nancy closes her mouth, and Steve throws on a tired but proud grin.

The silence drags on for a good long while before Nancy speaks up again. "Who else knows?"

"No one."

"Not your parents?"

"Geez, especially not my parents. Not them. Not Hopper. Not Mrs. Byers. Not Jonathan. And definitely not the kids. I wanted to tell you first."

"Steve— "

"I mean, you helped me with my essays, so I figured that I should tell you first. It was sorta like a big old team effort, and— "

"Steve," Nancy cuts across him again, more forcefully this time, but she's smiling broadly. Before Steve knows it, she's thrown her arms around him and buried her face into his shoulder. Slowly, awkwardly, Steve returns the embrace. It's familiar, so familiar, yet also so strange and alien to him. It's like tasting some homemade treat that you should love and you still love, but it's made from off-brand ingredients. It's fundamentally the same, but there's something subtlety off as soon as you take the first bite. And Steve thinks he knows why.

"This sucks," Nancy finally speaks again. "It's gonna really suck being here and not having you around."

"I'll be around," Steve assures her. "Besides, you've got Jonathan for company."

She blushes again, redder this time. "I mean, yeah, but…" and she trails off. It's best left unsaid, something Steve knows all too well at this point.

Both of them stand awkwardly together for a minute or so, not moving and not meeting each other's eyes. Finally, Nancy pats the space on her bed. Steve gets the message and complies, collapsing onto the quilt. Together, they lay there, staring at the paint patterns on Nancy's bedroom ceiling. Nancy's fallen across one side and Steve's fallen across the other, so they meet in the middle, her right ear next to his left cheek. She's stuck a few posters and glow-in-the-dark stars on there, so there's something that catches the eye. The stars emit a faint green glow in the low light of Nancy's bedroom.

"What are you going to tell the kids?" Nancy asks. "I think Mike'll miss you if you go all the way to Chicago."

"I'm not going far. Indiana and Purdue are in-state, and Chicago's not that much of a drive. I'm sure he'll be fine," Steve reasons.

He doesn't have the heart to tell her that this was a scenario that he factored almost _entirely_ into his choice of schools. He applied to eight schools in total, and all of them were either in-state or no further to Chicago. He didn't want to have to be caught with the apocalypse coming for a third time and for him to be all the way in California. He's taking his bat, too. Yeah, it's old and starting to rot, and he'll definitely get expelled if they find it on any campus he visits, but the risk is worth the reward, in his opinion.

"Which are you going to choose?" Nancy's voice materializes again in his ear.

"I don't know," and that was the truth. To be honest, Steve's astonished he's even made it this far. He thinks back to Christmas and all the nights he spent in the library, slaving over his essays from morning until night. He didn't ask for help, not even from his parents. The relief that Steve felt when he sent them off was euphoric, a high without the need for substances. He could've walked to the moon. And then it was over, maybe when reality set in as deadlines loomed closer and closer until one day, it came. Now he actually had choices, which was way more than he expected. Where would he even start?

Nancy's smiling. Steve can't see her but he can tell. "I think you should go to Indiana," she says. "Study criminal law."

"Hah. My dad says that lawyers are crooks."

"I mean, they are. But DePaul's in a city. Chicago would be cool, living in a city, being a Bears fan."

"You should be a preforming arts major," Nancy teases.

"If I'm a preforming arts major, then you might as well shoot me where I stand," Steve declares with a deadpanned expression.

Steve and Nancy laugh for a solid while and then fall back into silence. And, before he can stop himself, he's talking again. "Do you remember what you said to me on Halloween, Nancy?"

She's silent for a minute or two. "No," she says unconvincingly. Steve thinks he hears a hint of remorse behind her words.

"You told me that everything was bullshit, remember?"

"Look, I was drunk and I didn't know-"

"Nance," Steve cuts across her distressed excuse, "It doesn't matter. I don't care."

She falls silent. Steve wonders how many thoughts are racing through her head right now. "You were right, you know," he says. "Everything is complete bullshit."

The sheets shift as Nancy cranes her neck towards him. "Hm?"

"I mean, think about it. We've saved the world from monsters and the government and you know what my biggest problem this school year ended up being? College applications and some west coast douche with an earring and a compensation problem. Honestly, how is that even fair? I mean, what's worse. Billy Hargrove or Demogorgans? Tell me, I want to know."

"Steve?"

She speaks his name softly, a fracture of a word. Steve cranes his neck towards Nancy and takes in her face. It's devoid of emotion, and she's staring at the ceiling as if she's trying to pretend that the plastic stars overhead are real and she wishes she could drown in them. When she speaks, her lip quivers. "I'm sorry."

 _I'm sorry._

He should feel grateful, hopeless, broken, infatuated.

But honestly? All Steve Harrington feels is fucking confused. "What for?"

If Nancy's taken aback by that response she doesn't let it show. "I never apologized with what happened between us. With me and you and Jonathan."

"There was never anything to apologize for, Nance."

"Yeah, but—,"

"Nancy," Steve tells her severely, "if I was angry at you, do you think I would be crawling through your second story window in the middle of the night to tell you about my college plans?"

She laughs. She laughs like nothing mattered. She laughs like she laughed when she was still with him. And deep down, Steve knows that it's the same exact scenario. Deep down, he wonders if Nancy Wheeler will ever forgive herself, or if she already has and she thinks that Steve hasn't forgiven himself instead. It's a paradox of a situation without it having to be. "Hey Nance?"

Now she turns her head. "Yeah?"

"If I invite you out to homecoming, do you think Jonathan will be able to sacrifice a weekend?" Steve asks her, completely serious.

Nancy stares at him before breaking down into giggles "What, you think you'll have a girlfriend by then?"

"What, me? Steve Harrington? Babysitter, demon slayer, basketball star _and_ hair stylist extraordinaire? How will the ladies be able to resist this fine piece of meat?"

"Yeah." Nancy pauses, and then, "Yeah, I think we will."

And Steve sighs. He turns his head upwards, tracing the patterns in the stars on Nancy's ceiling. "Thanks, Nance."

She hums back that she heard him. There's a shift in the sheets as she turns her eyes back upwards. And for a moment, they're lost in time. Drifting through the world on the back of a bed in the middle of Indiana. Steve can feel the world swing under his back, and for a moment he thinks he can see where the stars are crossing the sky above them.

And in that moment, things were fine.

Yeah, things were going to be just fine.

* * *

 **So, I have some people to thank:**

 **I'd like to thank my friend on AO3 who helped beta most of this fic. Couldn't have done it without her.**

 **Thanks also to my roommates that supported me through their teasing. Even though you guys are assholes, I still love ya.**

 **I want to thank all the reviewers on here, AO3 and Tumblr that gave this fic such nice comments. Y'all honestly warmed my heart.**

 **And...maybe I'll do a sequel to this with Steve at college. Maybe not. I need to think of an actual plot before I promise anything haha.**

 **But yeah, thanks so much for sticking with this! And one more time, please review, follow, or fav if you enjoyed!**


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